


The Landeskog case

by Liffis



Category: Inception (2010), Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Inception Fusion, Banter, Broken Hearts, Colorado Avalanche, Emotional, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Everyone Is Gay, Flirting, Gen, Happy Ending, Inception AU, M/M, Mention of gun violence, Past Relationship(s), Several key aspects of this fic are untagged because otherwise they'd be spoilers, mention of needles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 13:14:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19992799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liffis/pseuds/Liffis
Summary: It's just their average run-of-the-mill job: a company wants to know if one of their newest hotshots is as loyal as he claims to be. They've all done their fair share of these jobs. Get in, crack the info, get out, done. Except this time, it's not as easy as it looked to be like at first.*The thing about dreams is: you can haveeverythingyou want.





	The Landeskog case

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this fic. People, this fic. I've been dreaming (ha!) of writing an Inception AU for AGES. Basically since the movie came out, that's what I'd wanted to write, one epic-ass Inception fic. The actual writing got done rather quickly, actually: the majority of this fic was hammered out in only a few days, it was like some mad writing fever. And this time, I also edited it and that took ages - but also easily added another 5k, if not more. Didn't exactly keep track.  
> But yeah. I've been sitting on this for some time. The fact that it is now done and ready to be uploaded is kinda ironical, because well, I've been in one of the deepest pits of depression right now too, and usually that doesn't mix particularly well with writing. Maybe the Avs's special power? Who knows.   
> But in general, the Avs + its fandom has been extremely welcome and I have enjoyed my (so far) newbie's entrance to it!
> 
> Regarding this fic: I've taken extreme liberties with the Avs and their personalities. So, yeah. Also, if you are unsure regarding the tagging of this fic and would like to know which further tags would've been included in a complete tagging, I recommend scrolling down to the end notes, a full list will be included there! (SPOILER for fic, tho)
> 
> Huge shout-out to eafay70 for beta-reading!

_“- but WHY can’t you tell me – I’m not your enemy,_ darling, _what, do you think I’m going to sell you out?!”_

_/_

_“- this is the fifth ‘business trip’ in the last month, an awful lot of trips – don’t you think your ‘colleagues’ can find their own asses without you helping them?”_

_/_

_“- yeah and what the fuck did you expect? You knew! You knew when getting together with me! You knew how I am and how I would be and we still got together! So what do you want?!”_

_/_

_“You promised! You promised me you’d be there, why aren’t you here?!”_

_/_

_“Who are we even kidding here? Fuck, you know how you look like. You could probably snap your fingers and get some, immediately, while I –“_

_“What?! Do you think I’m this slutty and easy to go? ”_

_/_

_“Fuck, I can’t stand it – what, you back from your affair? Was he good?”_

_“I’ve never –“_

_“Yes exactly, you’ve never. Not once in the last four months – because you weren’t here! Shit, we’re supposed to be together, but I haven’t seen you once in weeks, not even a message –“_

_“Are we, then?”_

_/_

_“I think it’d be best, if we weren’t. Not anymore.”_

_/_

_“Key’s in the letterbox.”_

*

“Gabriel Landeskog.”, Nate drops the file on the table, startling Josty hard enough he almost falls out of the chair.

“Our next mark?”, JT says, already browsing through the file.

He leafs through the neatly clipped file: Nate doesn’t have much yet, but what he does have, is carefully put together and sorted.

“What’s the verdict?”, Josty asks, bending over to grab the file and half-pulling it out of JT’s hands, who barely manages to hold on. Like this, they’re really close, with Josty smushed against JT’s side as they both check out Nate’s file. And, apparently, totally oblivious to how unusualy close they are.

Nate just rolls his eyes at their antics and says nothing. Although it would be prime chirping material – but new jobs, new beginnings, and whatnot. He’s going to act like he really is leading this group of baby dreamshare workers, and just soldier on.

“Good old snooping.”, he says, “Landeskog’s 24, about to inherit his mother’s seat at SWECOM, a company for renewable energies. And apparently he’s undergone a 180 in behaviour two years ago. Company board wants to know why before he gets power.”

JT furrows his brows, letting go of the file so quickly, that Josty’s pull means he overbalances and almost falls off of JT’s chair. Hastily, JT motions to grab him and keep him from falling – but it’s unnecessary, Josty gets a grip. His face is flushed, when he sits down in his chair, this time properly.

After looking at him to make sure he’s okay, JT finally turns back to Nate, but before he can say anything, Josty pipes up.

“Did they say why?”

Nate sighs, dropping down into a chair.

“Just some hints. They’re mistrustful of Landeskog’s behaviour change. Now, he is a model employee, but before, he’d been rather…lax with his investment in the company. With his mother stepping back from the leaders’ board, they want to make sure he hasn’t been bought by a rival.”

Nate pauses, taking a sip of his cherry soda.

“I haven’t had time enough to properly check out which other companies are at stake here, and they didn’t offer any details. So as far as I’m concerned, we’re going in to find out what exactly made Landeskog reconsider and get involved in SWECOM again.”

Basically, this is the prime example of a bread and butter run: not too much at stake, rather small secret, so far no red flags.

Of course, there never could be a guarantee yet: dreams were always a finicky business, with risks they cannot know of before actually going under. As all dream sharers, they will have to plan for that, accommodating insecurities and be quick to adapt.

Nate will have to dig into Landeskog’s past: not just to eliminate any risks for his colleagues and friends while on the job. Major breaks in life, inexplainable benders with Landeskog disappearing, strange doctor visits, rumours about having issues: all of it could indicate an instable subconscious and a risk for this to turn into a bloody nightmare, quite literally. And that’s just the requirement for safety. JT and Josty will also depend on what he’ll be able to find out about Landeskog. For them to be able to do their job, they’ll need all the knowledge and facts he can find out.

“Are you in?”

Josty snaps the file shut.

“For sure! Sounds like it’s going to be fun.”

JT’s gaze stays on him for a moment, before he looks at Nate.

“Me, too.”

Nate takes a deep breath in relief.

Not that he’d thought they’d leave him alone in this – but still, his track record of _leading_ jobs is not the longest yet, despite his overall good career. He needs the experience, too.

“Alright. I’m going to go for a chemist. Let’s meet up later, to come up with a strategy.”

*

The majority of chemists, of course, are located in LA or SanFran. West Coast all around, except for the funky conglomerate at the East Coast, of which Nate would rather prefer to steer clear of. Too many issues. Not worth upending just for a chemist, for a job this small. That’d be overkill.

It’s what he tells himself, at least. It’s a good reason.

Ha! As if. Nate might have all the noble reasons, but the truth is: this is just his excuse to go see him again. They’ve been working together on at least a dozen jobs so far, all of them pulled through perfectly well and successful and –

And if Nate is honest, truly and utterly honest: he accepted the majority of those jobs because he knew who he’d been working with. Heard the name, signed up, easy as that.

Trust is a fickle thing, in dream share: making or breaking jobs. Lives. At their jobs, much more is at stake.

So it’s pretty damn stupid to go and fall in love and have it dictate your decisions in accepting jobs.

Nate had done it anyways. Beneath his qualifications and connections, he is much less noble than he acts, and sometimes, that scares him, too, the wild thing that’s lurking in the spaces he isn’t quite looking at, perpetually there. Reminding him of his foolery, the risks he is taking, all of it – for this?

For him?

The ranch is outside the city, in the middle of nowhere, pathways meandering through the landscape, dotted with trees. The closer Nate gets, the taller and thicker the trees grow, until they build a pale pink canopy of blossoms. In a few weeks, there’ll probably be a call for help in cherry picking again, as every year.

Nate parks his car in the courtyard, easily accessible, in case things go south…and yet out of the direct line of visibility, just to be safe. It’s an automatic thing for him, by now. Perks of the job, right there.

No one’s here, he’s all alone. The wide gates are left open and slightly rusty. It all looks – not quite in disrepair. But not shiny or pretty; this is all for daily hard working, all of it in use. However, the horses’ material is all carefully put away, and from what he can see, as he wanders through the stable, all of the horses are shiny and visibly well-kept.

He grins.

“EJ!”, he calls out.

No doubt his host already knows he’s here, has known for a longer time already – no one lived so far out of everyone’s reach without being able to protect themselves, if it came down to it. Especially in their business. Always a plan b, in case things went south.

“What’re you doing here?”

Nate flinches, whirling around and hand going for a gun he isn’t wearing at the moment – good luck, otherwise he would’ve shot EJ in cold blood. And as soon as he sees EJ – dusty, dirt smeared on his clothes and a streak on his cheek -, Nate’s heart jolts and tumbles into a mess.

In a way, it’s like coming home, if people could be a home. He knows EJ. Not just the facts, although he does know those, too. No, he knows him, EJ is trusted. Familiar. The curve of his smile, his laugh, his expressions, the tension he can carry and the easy relaxation of it too: Nate knows of it. Knows of him, too.

And it never stops taking away his breath seeing him all over again. Even if it’s been just a few weeks, like now, just a few weeks: they do stay in contact. But text messages are no substitute for EJ as a whole person, standing close again, grinning at him.

“Good to see you!”, Nate says – and mumbles half of that into EJ’s chest as he’s pulled into a hug.

“You’re really here!”, EJ says, no, laughs.

But his grip around Nate is tight and tense and as if he’d never let go of Nate, if he could get away with it. Nate shares the sentiment and he genuinely hopes that EJ can feel him holding him just as tightly.

A few weeks of nothing but sparse text messages may be enough to keep in contact – but they are better than nothing. Reminding Nate of a world beyond dreams, as he holds onto them like bread crumbs guiding him home. Even if he doesn’t dare openly acknowledging that they were doing so.

Neither does he dare telling EJ how he missed him. That he missed him, at all: they’re not like this. Good friends, yes. Of course. And that alone is a rare thing in dream sharing: having friends beyond an understanding of mutual usefulness. – No, Nate trusts him. Has trusted EJ with his life and will trust him again, when it comes down to it. Which it will, at one point or another.

Nate’s heart jolts in his chest at the voice and – when he sees EJ, it tumbles into a mess. EJ really hasn’t changed at all since they’ve seen eachother the last time. It has only been a few weeks, really, a few weeks of nothing but sparse text messages Nate had held onto like bread crumbs guiding him home – without ever acknowledging they were doing so. And there EJ is, real and in colour and he’s here, and why has Nate not visited him earlier?

EJ pulls him into a hug, strong enough to squeeze the breath out of Nate.

“You’re really here!”, he says, laughs, but it sounds slightly wet, so Nate says nothing, just returns the hug with all his might.

“Missed you.”, and he’s not sure who of them whispered it, but either way, they keep hugging, so the sentiment is shared by them both.

In his pocket, his totem burns. He doesn’t check.

*

“Somehow I don’t think you just came here for a booty call.”, EJ says, matter of fact.

Nate sighs, rolling backwards slightly, away from EJ, looking at the ceiling. The fan stirs lazily, and the huge bay windows allow a faint breeze in.

  
“We need a chemist. For a job.”

Abruptly, EJ sits up, the bed covers pooling across his hips. There’s a hickey, below his belly button, and it’s from Nate.

“’We’?”

“Josty, JT, me. Small team, simple extraction.”, he turns to look at EJ.

There’s a another purple hickey on EJ’s shoulder, smeared there absentmindedly. It looks good – mainly, because it’s EJ and everything looks good on him.

“You probably just jinxed it.”

  
EJ’s eyes are glittering with mischief. He would’ve made an excellent forger – perhaps less good at the actual forging part, but Nate is very sure that EJ is breathtakingly good at drawing out secrets effortlessly. Plucking them from people like it is nothing, like berries from a bush, just like that.

Sometimes he wonders if he, too, is as visible with – everything, if EJ knows.

“You still in?”

“Tell me about the job.”, EJ half-orders him, getting out of bed to grab some paper.

Nate stares after him, at EJ’s long legs and round ass and that wide back. It is an excellent view – excellent enough that he isn’t even quite ashamed when EJ notices him and laughs at him, papers and pen in hand and all.

They fuck a second time before Nate finally gets around to tell him about the Landeskog job.

*

_A tall building, all glass and steel: modern, and to be found in hundreds of cities across the world. On the gold plaque at the front: SWECOM huvudkontoret, next to a stylized birch branch._

_Cut._

_Landeskog, getting out of a nondescript car, holding a nondescript briefcase and wearing a nondescript suit. In his hand, a coffee cup. To go, but in the bright colours of a travel mug brought from home._

_Cut._

_Landeskog, in a meeting room. Behind him, there are several flower pots with massive and overgrown plants, like miniature jungle ferns. The resolution is too low to make out his facial expression._

_Cut._

_Landeskog, sitting in a small café. Across him, there is a woman, with her back to the photographer, she is gesturing. Landeskog smiles at her, brightly, as he takes a sip from a cup. On the table between them, there are small plates, with leftover crumbs from pastries. The two of them sit close._

“Who’s the woman?”, Josty immediately asks, as soon as Nate has clicked off the display.

JT’s silent and busy – probably working his architect magic, Josty bets, and it is so, so tempting to just keep looking at him –

But ogling hot guys isn’t his job, sadly enough. He’s here to trick Landeskog’s subconscious and give them a boost, if they need it, making the dream just a tad easier to infiltrate. Wriggling his way in to open the gates for the others…

And the woman Landeskog’s all cozying up would be just perfect to forge.

“His sister.”, Nate says and Josty mentally curses. Two words, an idea destroyed.

Nate straightens from where he’d been looking for – a paper? Confused, Josty takes it from his outstretched hand.

It’s a Swedish newspaper, apparently, so he has no hope to understand even a single word, but there’s a huge picture on the front page, with – Josty checks – the same young woman, next to another, older woman. Both of them wearing formal clothes. Very visibly of high quality, Josty notes, and more traditional. Both women share an almost uncanny resemblance with Landeskog. Family, then.

“That’s her, next to their mother.”

Josty looks at them – and quickly discards the mother. She could be forged, of course, but going down that path…he’d rather not, if he can help it. For bigger stakes, he’d suggest her in a heartbeat: parents always had an emotional connection, which made it easier to crack the subconscious.

But this job is too lowkey to justify getting out the big guns. Landeskog’s just an easy snoop, nothing more. The risk of alerting his subconscious to foul play by not getting the mother – or any family member, really – was too high for the possible aid it could give. Not worth it.

However, he’d put the mother down as a possible option. She did have the connections to SWECOM and was the main focus for the board members and Landeskog’s career.

A solid maybe, then.

He puts the newspaper down, and Nate starts talking again, as if having waited for him.

“Landeskog has two siblings. Another brother, but he’s not working for the company.”, he clicks on the presentation for a picture of – oh yes, Josty can definitely see the resemblance in him.

“But he’s around?”, JT finally pipes up from whatever he’s been doing. He’s looking at something in the picture, but whatever it is, Josty can’t make it out. The picture only shows Landeskog’s brother. Who has flour-striked arms and an apron, instead of formal business attire.

“Yeah”, Nate says, “Apparently he’s a cook at the _Kaptenen_ , a restaurant in Stockholm.”

Josty clicks his pen and spinning it across his fingers. Nate would send all info to him later anyways, so he could dig in and find out where he could go to get the most information about the people in Landeskog’s proximity.

  
“Do you have pictures of that?”, JT asks.

“No, but I’ve looked it up, it’s apparently famous in Stockholm and booked out months in advance.”

JT nods and scribbles something down. He’s biting his lower lip, Josty notes, absolutely lost in concentration on whatever it is he is writing. It’s a very distracting mouth -

“And Josty, I haven’t found a picture of the Landeskog brothers together yet.”, Nate addresses him, and hastily, Josty stops staring at JT, snapping to attention.

“You sure?”

“There probably are pictures, so far I haven’t dug deep. But if it’s not popping up immediately…”

Josty nods. Yeah, Nate doesn’t ned to finish that sentence, because he knows what it means: the brother is probably out, too. Maybe the Landeskog brothers are less close, who’d know, but then the brother might not elicit the reaction they want, might not be the emotional in they want in the dream. And in a subconscious, a weird or conflicted relation…well. Nate would find out all about their relationship, so, and Josty’d go to Stockholm soon anyways, to get a real hands-on feeling for it. Data would never get the feeling of a person right, the whole personality.

Which left the woman Landeskog’d been so cozy with. Family, good relation, all set.

“So, the woman. Who’s she?”

Nate grins at him, but it’s rather crooked. Whatever he has to say, Josty most likely won’t like it.

“Twin sister.”, he says, and.

Fuck, no.

No, he does not like this at all! What is this? Not a single person on a good level for him to forge? Without breaking the big guns of ripping open all of Landeskog’s family relations and digging in. So what, he’ll have to go to Stockholm and pray that Landeskog’s friends will be enough for him to forge. If the family’s a bust, try friends, had worked so far all the time.

He drops the pen on the table and rubs his face.

Fuck, he really doesn’t want to forge anyone of Landeskog’s family. Tightly knit families were always a nightmare.

*

DEN/COL > ARN/SWE

From: Denver, Colorado, United States (Denver International Airport)

To: Stockholm, Sverige (Stockholm Arlanda Airport)

2x Hand Luggage

1x Carry On

/ Early Boarding

/ Reserved Seat

1x Extra Leg Space

Note for transnational passengers:

Please check your passport status and your visa status prior to travelling. Our airline is not responsible for non-valid passports and visa.

*

Getting the dreamscape right usually takes JT a few tries: in the beginning, he’s just sketching it out. It’s the haziest and most vague design, because at that point, he usually doesn’t know yet how they’re going to spin it. Which emotion they need at which level to get the results they need.

JT’s not the most experienced architect yet, but he’s no newbie, either: his designs are solid, once he has them fleshed out.

With Landeskog, however, all bets are off and it’s like he’s just entered the dreamshare business again as a beginner. JT’s tried – but nothing clicks like it used to, and he struggles to grasp him fully. To get even as much as a rough idea for level designs. JT’s never had these many problems with a dreamer’s landscape like he does now with Landeskog’s.

Nate’s keeping him updated on everything he does manage to dig up, all of it neatly filed away in colour-coded and sorted mail. Terrifyingly efficient, if JT’s honest.

A few times, they even see eachother briefly – they can’t chat for long, both caught up in a whirlwind of research and, in JT’s case, dreaming. And designing. And more research. But when they do meet, they briefly chat how it’s going.

Not good, he has to concede, and going by the pinched look in Nate’s face, he shares this particular fate.

They dream together a few times, when JT wants to show him the latest design and updates. It’s not much, and as the days slowly trickle out of his palms, he’s growing anxious. Which, in turn, makes his dreams hostile, even though Nate’s filling in the projections. But something always rubs them the wrong way, and rather sooner than later, they have a full-out revolution in JT’s mind, ripping apart the dreamspace.

It’s unsettling – and in the brief time they have left before it all crashes apart spectacularly, JT updates him on his latest designs. If only he could show him better ones; crisp, clear levels stunning him. Perhaps even eking out a compliment – coming from Nate, who himself had learnt from the best, it’d be…something. A lot of it.

So far, Nate hasn’t, and JT keeps on hoping. And working.

But the data is sparse, and JT himself is not finding out much more: Nate’s mailed him Landeskog’s routine, and JT’s checked it all out. It is…- he’s just an architect, alright, but even he can see something’s majorly off in Landeskog’s life. He doesn’t need to be Josty for that.

And Josty, now, that’s a story of its own.

JT tries to – just not think of it, but in their line of work, that’s impossible. ‘Not thinking about it’ works exactly zero times, because as soon as he’ll go under, his subconscious merrily confronts him with what he’s tried to bury.

So, yes, very safe to say: JT’s stressed.

*

The more Nate tries to dig into Landeskog’s life, the bigger his urge grows to just grab his laptop and his phone and hurl it out of the window in frustration. It’d mean even more problems for him, in the long run, but in the short term, it would be so satisfying.

Because extracting information about Landeskog is like pulling a tooth without anaesthetic: almost impossible. Nate has tried a lot of his usual tricks, but it’s like Landeskog does not exist. At work, yes, of course. All the files and data that signals Landeskog is dutifully working. Josty’s confirmed it, too, that Landeskog is always working on time, over time, even. So on that side, they’re all set. Normal life, nothing to see here.

But it’s elsewhere that Landeskog just…trickles away. Oh, he exists outside of work too, of course, and has his usual haunts: a favourite Syrian restaurant he visits every Friday, and a Thai place he gets take-away every second Saturday. A dog sitter for his dog, Zoey. A dry cleaner for his suits, a grocery store.

Everything an average adult has, especially if he makes as much money as Landeskog is making. But there’s something missing, Nate realizes all too soon: there is almost no – emotional connection.

Landeskog has no spouse, not even a partner, and Nate genuinely struggles to even define some of Landeskog’s contacts as ‘friends’. They’re just too brief and shallow to truly count, if he’s honest.

No more intense relationship, no deeply emotional connection, nothing too deep. The people in Landeskog’s life are there, but barely. As if Landeskog’s a spectre, floating on.

It’s eerie. Especially because Landeskog is, apparently, very polite and well-mannered when someone does talk to him.

He texts JT everything he finds, and is met with just as much frustration. If this continues, it will be impossible to get an in, walled off as Landeskog is.

Briefly, Nate considers breaking into Landeskog’s flat, just to find out more. Fuck, at this point he’d even gladly take a hardcore SM-room somewhere in his lofty penthouse suite, if only because that would make him more human, more real than he is right now.

More likely he’d be awaited by another nightmare in white and off-white Scandinavian design, as far as he can guess having scanned it with his binoculars. From directly opposite. Lucky coincidence for him, that: he’d rented the space expecting to stake out and check out Landeskog’s living patterns. The fact this had taken him such a short time, well, no one could expect that, could they? Landeskog rarely is home, leaving the house at five-thirty on the dot, only to come back at ten in the night. All day. Every day, except for Sunday.

Other than that, he hasn’t found much. Landeskog’s living at an apartment in the centre of Stockholm. High ceilings, from what Nate has seen from the outside, and a lovely, newly renovated house. High-end and expensive, too. The kind casually rich people afforded to live in.

The only morsels he has managed to uncover, the only ones proving that there is something behind Landeskog, proving that there is an _actual living human being_ – they were given to him by a neighbour, of all people.

Originally, Nate hadn’t even meant to charm her, he’d just wanted to have some small talk, because she’d seemed like the kind of elderly lady who’d sit at home, watching the streets, taking notice of all the comings and goings of the people living there. But she’d been so open and bright, inviting him inside and offering him tea and tiny cherry jam cookies. “Homemade!”, she’d beamed, so Nate had dutifully eaten some as he listened to her.

An afternoon very well spent, indeed.

First: Landeskog moved here two years ago. Right at the time his apparent change in mind regarding his mother’s work.

Second: Landeskog helped the neighbours. Specifically, the older lady, by bringing her food from the farmer’s market and buying her groceries, sometimes even helping her walk down the street with her walker.

And, third: Landeskog was apparently lonely.

While Nate had known the first two things, now, this was news, so he’d steered the lady back to this, who’d gladly talked about her “dear boy Gabe”. Who is, apparently, so sad “after all that has happened to him”. On this, she hadn’t elaborated on. Not even by coincidence, not even after his many attempts.

So he’d eaten too many cherry jam cookies and nodded along at her tales. It’s the best in he’s had for a long, long time, and when he’d texted JT and Josty the information afterwards, they’d just sent back a string of emojis.

Fuck, Nate really doesn’t want to exploit Landeskog’s relationship to this neighbour lady, but if this is going to be the only way, he’ll have to. And it would suck.

*

There’s a message on his phone. On the encrypted contact, so Josty leaves it be and doesn’t check it, not even during a toilet break. He’s proud of himself for that, too. Although his heart does stumble for a second or two at the prospect of who it could be. At the moment, there are less than a dozen people who have the number of this contact, and that already includes his family. And seeing as neither his mom nor his sis text him that often…it is likely that it’s job related. Which only leaves one contact, really, because Nate always texted after work.

He swallows and puts the phone away. It’d just be a distraction, and if it had been genuinely pressing, there would’ve either been a sign on the message to show him it was important – or there would’ve been a follow-up call.

Until then, his internship at SWECOM is more important than this message. It’s a full-time job on top of the full-time internship: he has to act all day, miming the perfect intern. Slightly nervous at entering the job field and being presented with such a huge chance here at SWECOM! At the same time, he is supposed to be keen and motivated to do well, working responsibly. A perfect mix of traits, just so he is well-remembered as a good intern and may have the opportunities to sniff out secrets, yet easy to forget in the mass of wide-eyed bushy-tailed interns.

Exhausting work – and it would be even worse if he wouldn’t be working for Ms Tornberg. She’s the one he is supposed to trail after, learning from her, getting taught the Ins and Outs of SWECOM by her. Officially, she’s the head assistant to Mr Landeskog.

Unofficially, she’s basically Landeskog’s stand-in. Josty had expected as much: assistants and secretaries always were the real gold mines. The executives never truly knew the ins and outs of their own business – they only knew numbers and efficiency. But those that dealt the everyday business, that talked to people and coordinated the business, now, those were the real stuff.

Basically, trailing Ms Tornberg is the answer to the prayers he hadn’t known he’d spoken. While she’s serious and always, without a break, expects his very best, demanding him to read up on people coming and going, and expecting him to remember all of them – she’s also handing him a lot on a silver platter. A flick of her hand opens data vaults, record offices, and coffee break rooms to him. Her name, spoken in brief chit-chats during breaks is the perfect way to start smalltalk, and soon, people remember him. _Ms Tornberg’s intern_ , they say, and shake their heads as if to add: _the poor guy_. It’s almost ridiculously easy to weasel out information on the people working here.

He doesn’t gain much, but it adds up. Little by little, break by break. Ms Tornberg takes two breaks every day, on the dot, like a clockwork: lunch and afternoon; so he does, too. Her lunch, she brings from home, but for the afternoon, she steps out to buy herself a pastry from the closest bakery. Usually a cinnamon roll – and when Josty agrees to get himself one, too, he – discovers this to be the bakery/café from the picture of Landeskog and his sister!

The fact that the cinnamon roll is absolutely delicious is just yet another flimsy reason to text JT a picture of the bakery. And if he receives a string of !!! and a ty!, well.

But the real kicker is something else: the meetings. Ms Tornberg has him trail her, to take notes. Not that she needs them: she’s keeping her own, so Josty’s free to do as he pleases. Which is, namely, checking out the board members. The ones who employed them. If they know that one of their…investments is in the same room as them? Probably not.

Probably because they’re busy eyeing Landeskog even less subtly than he’d expected them to, looking at him as if they expect him to grow a second head at a moment’s notice. Not openly mistrusting yet – Landeskog’s so far only shadowing his mother at those meetings -, but on their way to. The only way they could be more obvious about it would be by outright saying so, and apparently, the feeling is mutual, because Landeskog is nothing but reserved with them.

All formal business, as sharp and neutral as his bespoke suit. It’s eerie, how similar Landeskog is to the stillness of the pictures Nate had shown them. As if Landeskog has locked away the rest that’d give him life.

Josty has never seen something like it, really. So, he writes it down, in his shorthand, and later on texts the snippets to Nate and JT. They won’t make use of it like Josty will, but better be safe than sorry. This whole thing is weird enough that he wants them to know, just to be on the safe side. As safe as can be, considering this business.

*

After Josty’s slightly flirty text – well, JT’s not even sure if it is truly flirting, but he wants to believe. He really does. At least he hasn’t put the foot in his mouth and asked Josty if he wanted to accompany him.

Anyways. Point being, now that he knows where the bakery is and that, apparently, the cinnamon buns are worth dying for, it’s a good idea to check it all out.

The first thing he notices upon entering the store is: the strong, sweet, warm smell of cinnamon and other spices. And coffee. It’s a homely smell. - The Swedes did know how to make a perfect and strong cup of coffee, especially for _fika_. A tradition JT really can get behind, if he’s honest. A time set aside just for taking a coffee break? Come on.

He comes in right before the _fika_ rush, and stays until the café starts emptying out again. At some point, Josty comes in, trailing after a woman in a crisp black pinstripe suit. Josty acts as if he doesn’t know at JT, but right before stepping up to the counter, he winks at JT, lips curled into a beautiful smile and eyes glittering.

Hastily, JT looks down at his empty plate and chases some leftover cinnamon crumbs around.

Only when the windchime at the door signals them leaving does he dare looking up again. Josty and the woman are turning towards the direction of the SWECOM headquarters.

Roughly half an hour later, right when he contemplates whether to get yet another cup of coffee or to just go home, Nate comes in, beelining towards him.

“Long time no seen.”, Nate grins, “Hey, you on the jump?”

JT shakes his head, putting down his pen and notebook to accompany Nate to the counter, getting himself another coffee. Caffeeine-free, this time, otherwise he’ll never be able to fall asleep, and he’d rather not have yet another nervous sleepless night of fearing never being able to dream naturally again.

“Try the cinnamon bun, they’re really good.”, he tells him, but Nate just shrugs.

“Not really my thing. besides, they have cherry -muffins.”

As soon as they sit back at JT’s table, both nursing their cup, they start talking. The café’s almost empty, the other patrons sitting at the other end of the shop, and the people from the till are in the back somewhere.

“Got anything new?”, he asks. Seeing Nate here, actively looking out for him outside of their regular meet-ups is…not yet alarming. But Nate wouldn’t do it if all was going on well.

“Some.”, Nate says, but doesn’t elaborate.

Probably because he doesn’t want to repeat himself with Josty later on. They’ve agreed to meet at the end of the week – partly because they don’t want to risk Josty to fall asleep during work time, in case their meeting runs late. Which it will, without a doubt, there is a lot to talk about, after the time they each spent in Stockholm.

Well, if Nate doesn’t want to talk: JT sure wants to, and now that they are meeting each other anyways, he plans on making the most.

“I struggle with the layer design.”, JT says, shoving his cup to the side. Briefly, he regrets not having gotten himself another cinnamon bun. The buttery, soft dough, the intense cinnamon and the spices, and the sweet glazing…oh, yes.

“It’s difficult to find out anything about him and design a level without knowing anything.

Nate hesitates, as if not quite sure how to proceed.

“I think he’s lonely.”, is all he finally says, and JT nods. He would’ve said the same, actually.

“And I think the reason why happened two years ago.”

Nate’s voice is quiet when he says it. And the way he sounds when saying it makes something cold and clammy ball up in JT’s belly. The worry about the level design is forgotten for now.

“What makes you think that?”

*

“The sister’s _really_ not an option!”, Josty says, as soon as he’s through the door to the warehouse.

Nate and JT stare at him as if he’s an alien – and yes, both have their hands halfway towards where they, without a doubt, have put their guns. Good to know that at least their minds were with the job. Josty’s sure feels like it’s crunching numbers and appointments and peoples’ short bios even during sleep, too tired to do anything else. Waking, working, sleeping. Rinse and repeat.

“Why isn’t she?”, Nate asks, face serious.

He sighs and plops down next to JT, who shuffles his papers aside, smiling at him. A good smile. The part of Josty that hasn’t been buried in data is glowing at it.

“She’s his twin –“ “- which we knew already-“, Nate interjects.

Josty just cranks out a crabby look.

“They’re really into this twin mind reading thing.”, Josty sighs, miffed, leaning back his heaed.

Next to him, JT muffles a laugh. It nudges his leg into Josty’s, so he nudges back and otherwise leaves his leg where it is. And seeing as JT presses a nice, cold glass bottle against the bare skin of his arm, well, Josty’s willing to forgive him for laughing. Shit, he’d laugh, too, if it wasn’t so serious.

“Nate, you can absolutely drop it. I’ve seen them. They’re really –“, he gestures, “- in tune. Finishing sentences, understanding the other. Stuff like that. I can forge a lot, but I can’t forge this connection. The best I could do is suggesting it to him on the first layer, hoping that his subconscious will fill in for me during the second level. If we’d bother with a second level.”

Nate stills. And sighs. In a very particular way that reminded Josty a bit too much of long-suffering parents and teachers observing A Mess™.

His eyes snap open and he sits up properly again.

“Nate, no way.”

JT just pats his shoulders.

“We just might have to go for two layers.”, he says, quietly. His hand is broad, Josty notices, and very, very warm. The patting trails off into…well, more of a petting.

“The thing is, I just can’t get a grasp on Landeskog. It might be more – useful? Useful to go for two layers, make the first one something easy, average. To ease him into the whole business, maybe stir some emotions and memories. Maybe Stockholm, to bring in the connection of family and home. And on the second level, we tie it up with the connection of his mother, to make him think of why he wants to take over.”

JT’s eyes are very warm and dark and Josty’s heart is fluttering and trembling in his chest, like a caught bird. He doesn’t dare looking away, couldn’t even break the gaze even if he wanted to. He’s pinned under JT’s yes and that gentle smile, and JT’s hand is cupping his shoulder. It would be so, so easy for it to slip higher, trail Josty’s soft throat and cup Josty’s head and –

Nate cleans his throat, and they flow apart, Josty firmly settling back in his chair and busying himself with the bottle. It’s cold and glass and perfect to not think of JT.

“JT and I have been sketching it out.”, he says, pulling up a flip chart.

Next to Josty, JT is suspiciously silent, despite the design on the paper probably being his. It’s a dream layer, a rough sketch so far. Stockholm, perhaps? It’s a city, at least.

“First level’s going to be Stockholm.”, Nate repeats.

Josty just nods as if this is absolutely brand new information. He’s hyperaware of JT next to him. JT, who’s steadfastly looking down and busying himself by sketching something out in that notebook of his.

“And the second level…”, Nate flips to the next page of the flip chart. It’s a nondescript glass and steel building. Even on the first sketch, Josty can see how this could be turned into a maze. And going by his own thoughts of the SWECOM headquarters, that would make perfect sense.

“The headquarter?”

“Yeah. But it’s not detailed yet.”

“…haven’t finished designing the first layer yet.”, JT mumbles.

Figures, then, that the second one would be even rougher and less detailed. The level design is clean cut, and even for Josty, who’s definitely not talented with dream level design, easy to follow and, if it got worst to worst, easy to maintain as well. Good design is if even the forger could maintain a level. Probably that’s an unofficial rule of dreamshare somewhere.

Still, the niggle of worry doesn’t quite disappear.

“What about the risk of a third level?”, he asks.

He’d had that, once. A three-level dream. The job had gone horribly, with the pointman missing the mark’s latent daddy issues – which had manifested on the first level, of course – rendering his forge useless -, and on every other level after. They’d managed, in the end, on the third level, pulling the job through. But for a frozen eternity, blood trickling through his fingers and feeling himself dying, Josty had thought he’d end up in limbo. 

It still keeps him awake. That, or nightmares.

Thankfully, Nate just pulls a face at the suggestion.

“I’d rather keep it as easy as possible.”

Josty nods, relieved. No threat for limbo. Not for him, not ever again.

“Okay, so.”, he says, fake cheer in his voice, slapping his thighs, “Whom to forge on the levels?”

For a moment, they look at the dream level designs.

“Please tell me you’ve uncovered a secret friends club of Landeskog’s.”

Nate just winces.

With a groan, Josty drops his head back. Fuck, now whom is he going to forge? Because if the family is mostly – or, no, probably completely – off, and Landeskog has little to no friends, there’s really not much left, is there? Who is he going to forge? Is he going to mime a tourist guide on this job or what?

But it’s just weird that Nate has found nothing. With how everyone at SWECOM speaks of Landeskog, he would’ve expected something different, for sure. Yeah, Landeskog did work a lot – he was always there before Josty arrived and was still there when he left -, but surely even a guy that busy would have something beyond work. Right??

*

As soon as Josty and JT have left, presumably to take off the remains of Friday night to – what, party? Do something fun in Stockholm? Nate has no idea.

But they’re gone and the warehouse is silent and still and he is, finally, all alone.

And out of his depth.

He cannot see any way into Landeskog’s subconscious: it’s like Landeskog has broken off the majority of bridges into his subconscious, and those that are still there, are un-useable for them. His family, be it mother or his siblings, are mostly off, if though for practicality reasons. Josty could probably forge them, if worst got to worst. Especially on the second level, when they turned towards SWECOM, a forge of the mother might even be useful. The sister could be forged on the first level, in case they had to make Landeskog more familiar.

But still, it was too risky for Nate’s tastes. With both family members, they’d mostly trust on Landeskog tricking himself. He does not want his team’s success to run on that. Ever. Too risky. He needs a back-up plan. An idea, anything to break this dead end they’ve backed themselves into.

The perfect solution, of course, would be if he could peek into Landeskog’s mind before taking everyone else with him down there. Just to get a feeling for the ins and outs, to have something real in his hands. His mind. Whatever.

Unlikely for them to get this opportunity, however. And without that, he just has no idea how to solve this issue. The dream levels are set, yes, but it all feels generic so far, not as perfectly tailored to Landeskog’s subconscious. It doesn’t feel as if they’ll crack him right open to pluck the secret from him.

And what makes Nate so mad about this whole issue is that he doesn’t even know what to look for. This is the worst thing. He’s the point man, he should know about this! It’s his job, this is what he does – this is what he likes doing! This is why he became a point man: to dig into the limitlessness of information to find just the snippets that would be the foundations for the dreams, to scrape layers of reality off until only the important bits were left, explaining their mark. A security for going under.

Oh, he has several files: information on Landeskog. Where he goes, whom he meets, his movements and everything, it’s all neatly sorted and filed away, but _something_ keeps it from coming together. The last spark that puts it all in order, making sense of all he has collected. And he doesn’t even know where to look for that.

Somehow, Nate really refuses to believe that this is all there is to Landeskog’s life. The man is not someone who’d – who’d live like this. Surely not. He doesn’t know him, not really, he just knows of Landeskog through all that he has collected. But even so: with his family, money, charme, and the flashes of wit Josty’s been texting them about, with all of that and so, so much more: and that is what Landeskog makes of it? This bland life?

*

It’s shortly after noon when his phone rings. By sheer chance, EJ has it with him –

Well, usually it’d be chance. But ever since Nate’s visit, he’s. Well. He’s had his phone with him, always hoping for a call. A message. Anything. Heart torn up in strings, he’d hoped. Nate’s half a world away in Sweden, the time difference a nightmare. And yet, he’s so close to EJ.

At least in his mind. If EJ could still dream naturally, Nate would be there too, probably, but as it is, EJ doesn’t have this proof of his pathetic subconscious. It’s always jumping at the chance of – and let’s _just_ not, he decides, instead almost aggressively jamming his thumb on the display, accepting the call.

“Yeah?”, he drawls, as soon as the call has connected, willing his stupid heart to calm the fuck down.

The line is staticky.

“We’re in shit.”, Nate slurs.

His voice is thin, as if it, too, is stretched thin like the line is, spanning too much of a distance. EJ aches for him, wants to hold him, take him away from what plagues Nate. It’s always been too much at the same time, EJ knows – Nate’s good name didn’t come from nothing, and being Sidney Crosby’s successor had always been a curse as much as it had been a benediction.

But it’s not his job to solve Nate’s problem – ha, as if Nate would need him to. Nate’s more responsible and well-put together than he could ever hope to be, if he’s honest. The only two things he’s better are horses and chemist issues. That’s his stuff. And even then, they’d…have to – well, there’d have to be something more. Something beyond friendship. Which is all they are, friends.

As Nate’s friend, he can listen and make him smile at least.

“Paddlin’ up shit creek?”

Nate sighs, the noise a crackle against EJ’s ear.

“Without paddles, too.”, he mumbles.

EJ leans back, against the stable, closing his eyes. Across the line, he can quietly hear Nate’s breaths, as if Nate, too, is holding the phone close to himself. Probably not as close as EJ’s clutching his, but it’s something. Nate’s here, with him.

“Tell me about it.”, he asks.

He always likes hearing Nate’s voice, listening to him.

So Nate talks about their mark, and how he – well, the way Nate describes him, Landeskog sounds like a castle, almost completely walled off, with only a few rickety bridges remaining. Closed off to the world.

Waiting for something.

Nate breaks off into silence, as soon as he tells him that.

“What makes you think this?”, he asks, voice sharp, the drawls of drunkness almost completely gone.

His voice is – on the verge of. Something. EJ’s not sure. So he just keeps talking.

“Because he sounds – hm, like sleeping beauty, you know? Like the castle in the story, all still. You can’t tell me that he’d expect this current life style to go on forever. Nate, no one can live like this forever. Or for a long time, for that matter. Something has to give.”

For a second, all he can hear is Nate’s breath. Then –

Cursing.

“Stay on the line, stay on the line, I’m just going to – fuck, shit –“, and the shuffling and thundering of paper and heavier things being knocked around or over.

“Yeah, got some paper, gotta –“, and then all EJ hears is Nate mumbling unintelligible things, presumably while he writes whatever he needs to write down. EJ has no idea what Nate could write down, but whatever it is, it is apparently important.

So he just listens to Nate’s mumbling, and it’s all too easy to imagine him, how he’d look while furiously writing things down. Tip of his tongue between his lips in concentration, brows furrowed, as if nothing else mattered, just the paper and pen and the thoughts he has.

It’s too easy to imagine, to see it vividly in his mind.

His heart is doing stupid things in his chest, but thankfully Nate can’t hear them, and if EJ gets his wishes, won’t ever know of it, either. No need to risk what he has with Nate.

“Okay.”, Nate finally says, at some point, “Okay, I think I got the most important stuff down for now. But I think I have an idea.”, and he laughs disbelievingly, “Fuck, EJ, you just solved this problem like it’s _nothing_ , you’re really great.”

EJ has to bite his lip harshly at that, and whatever noise he made, it must’ve come across as a confirming one.

“Do you think you can come to Sweden anytime soon? No pressure, though: we don’t quite have a time frame yet, apparently the take-over is to happen in a few weeks, so we still have some time. That, and we still don’t have an idea about when to pull the stunt.”

“Sure”, EJ hears himself agree, “I’m gonna look up flights. Need to settle some horse business first.”

It’s just some ongoing business, easily solved with a few calls: by now he has his support network all ready to take up in case he needs to go for a job. That, and he needs some time to get all his somacin stuff ready to fly to Sweden.

But no matter how long he’s going to take, it will be both ages and nothing until he will see Nate again. Right in front of him, so close. All real again.

It always makes EJ remember sharply what he wants the most in the world yet cannot have, because it’s not his to have, Nate never will be.

*

Dawn is breaking by the time Nate is taking a step back to look at what he’s done. His hands are smudged, and there’s ink and paint smeared all over his hands and arms, but he’s done it.

He has a concept of the dream layers.

Of course, JT will have to confirm it, flesh them out, create and design the actual layers. But finally, Nate has created the bare bones, the underlying idea –

He looks at the dream layer he has sketched out. Perhaps it will be enough and they won’t have to go far. But even if they do, it will be easier for JT to build from here, to go on from this level. It’s just perfect.

And it’s EJ’s idea. Without him, Nate would have spent the night drinking away his mind, trying to come up with anything, anything at all, an idea, no matter how stupid, he would’ve taken it. Yet, one call to EJ, and EJ always, always was – so – he – he just – Nate couldn’t name it. Doesn’t dare naming it. If he won’t look at it, it won’t be a problem for him. Them.

*

The hazy dreams slip away from Josty before he can even properly remember them – all that sticks with him is a smile and freckles and _very_ soft lips, so yeah, he would’ve liked to continue this. Continue it a lot.

With a groan, he rolls to his stomach, grabbing his phone and squinting at the display. Nate. Emergency important message, with probably all available importance tags clicked on. So, no skipping out of that.

He groans again, contemplating just suffocating himself with his pillow. But then, no more JT.

Reading the message it is, then.

Before he’s quite done reading _and_ understanding its content, his phone rings again, this time with JT’s number.

“Mornin’”, JT drawls, voice heavy with sleep.

Josty’s heart picks up in speed as he wakes up more at the prospect of JT.

“Hey.”

“Got Nate’s message?”, JT yawns, loudly.

“Yeah.”, Josty just yawns back, chiming in with JT’s laugh afterwards.

“Wanna go for coffee before?”

“Sure.”, he says and hopes he didn’t sound too enthusiastic. Coffee? With JT? Whom he hadn’t been seeing as much of as he wanted due to the internship eating him alive? For sure!

He sits up, legs swinging over the bed corner.

“Maybe a cinnamon roll, too?”

“Yes _please_.”, JT groans, “And the biggest cup of coffee they have.”

And, listen. Suddenly Josty doesn’t even feel bad for missing out on the originally planned late Saturday brunch he had considered his only task for his one free day of the week. Otherwise, he’d wanted to do nothing.

But going for a cup of coffee with JT trumps all of that, easily. Even if it – he squints at the clock on his nightstand – happens at 05:39am.

“Let’s meet in front of the café, at, say, six?”

“Quarter past?”, Josty asks. He wants to look sharp, and to do that, he needs to shower and do something about his horrible bed head. It might be early, but he wants to look good for JT. A guy had to do what a guy had to do, especially when gay.

“Alright, quarter past. You know the one? The one with the cinnamon –“

“Yeah, for sure.”

As if Josty would forget the one. Not only is this one café on the way to both the warehouse and SWECOM HQ – it also opens at six, even on the weekend. Not something he ever would’ve thought he’d be forced to make use of, but here he is.

That, and the café makes JT’s favourite cinnamon rolls. On their private chats, JT has texted him some pictures from his Stockholm discovery travels, and on some hectically days, these pictures are the only thing getting Josty through. There’d been a lot of cinnamon rolls, and a lot of pretty Stockholm buildings.

“See you.”, he says and JT echoes him on that.

Time to….not look like he got woken up before six o’clock in the morning and now was getting ready to meet his extremely hot colleague/friend.

*

The fact that it is, in essence, still too fucking early, is almost forgotten by the time they’ve arrived at the warehouse. They’re late. Much too late, actually, JT is very aware of it.

But while that would’ve stressed him out at any other time, especially if the reason for a meeting is as important as this one – he can’t help feeling good about being late.

It’s Josty. They’ve been to the café, and chatted on their way to the warehouse, and all the while Josty’s hand has been brushing his. Pure coincidence, of course, they’d both been holding their sandwiches. But still. Their hands had touched and Josty had smiled and there’d been this one especially cheeky curl on Josty’s temple and –

And JT had never wanted something as much as he had wanted to brush it behind Josty’s ear and maybe kiss Josty. First on the temple, then on the lips. And Josty had been right there, so close and turned towards him and smiling so brightly and the time had flown by.

JT doesn’t regret a single second. The way from the café to the warehouse had been much too short for his taste. He doesn’t want this to be over. He wants to keep looking at Josty and daydream about those curl and that grin and the way his eyes crinkle and how he licks his lips and sometimes _looks_ at JT. Especially when he thinks JT’s not looking.

Whatever it is, there’s something, and JT wants to explore it more –

Except, the job isn’t waiting, not for them, and as soon as they enter the warehouse and Nate sees them, it is forgotten. JT’s just barely gotten out his sketchbook and pen, when Nate is upon them.

“There you are, finally!”, he calls, and there’s something wild in his face. And a smudge of ink across his forehead, too. On his table, there are some papers strewn around, a right mess. Unusual for Nate.

But then JT sees the more detailed sketches of the dream levels, and.

Wow.

Yeah, this merits the early wake-up call.

God, Nate’s idea is gorgeous: it’s a re-design of Stockholm. Surrounded by water? Limiting the risk of projections streaming in, limiting dream space. There’s the sketch of a tower in the middle – oh, yes, and Landeskog’s subconscious will fill that with the details – oh, yes, but if they keep the two layers, they wouldn’t even need to steal from him at that point, but if they could, this offers a chance to get it solved in one level. And if JT tweaks the details a bit, he could restructure the whole city, turn the structures around until the design was oriented towards the tower –

Oh, but this idea is really good, and yes, this. This is what JT loves about his job, this rush of finally having an idea for a dream level design, something that just - clicks.

Stockholm will have to be kept as realistic as possible, with only warping aspects. Not so much that Landeskog would grow suspicious, but enough that he’d immediately fill it with the emotions related to the city itself. The city! Not the people. Fuck, what a great idea.

While it’s not a proper maze yet, it could very easily be turned into one. The city itself, they could perhaps keep as maze-less as possible, just a lot of straight, clean lines towards the tower – SWECOM headquarters? He could design it so. Nate’s sketch doesn’t specify, but it’d make sense.

And as for back-ups, he could either use the canalisation or perhaps even the islands outside of Stockholm…with boats as shortcuts?

“Do we keep the second level?”, he asks, mind going miles a minute as he designs the level, all of it neatly coming together.

Yeah, this absolutely justifies getting woken up too early in the morning of a weekend.

It’s very visible how Nate spent the night: the design is rough, but the idea comes across well: the concept of Stockholm’s streets all aiming towards the centre, with SWECOM HQ being the focus of attention. Easy concept, easy grasp of it, even and especially for Landeskog’s subconscious. And JT could easily support it if he tweaks the building structure so the houses would grow taller…fuck, if he plays this right, they can do this like an ordinary bread and butter run, all in one level -

“I’d prefer a second level, actually.”, Josty chimes in, looking at the model.

JT turns around, brows furrowed, pausing his note taking for a moment.

“Why?”, Nate asks, and JT has to agree silently: the model is perfect for one level, really. He looks at Josty, who’s squinting at the sketches. JT doesn’t get it, Nate’s ideas are great, and frankly, he’s probably also keeping the idea of a colour scheme. Always a good idea to bring in second-hand inputs, so the subconscious would latch onto that and leave them free to -

“I…”, Josty starts, startling JT out of his thoughts.

“- it is a good model, no doubt, but I think it’d work better on two levels.”

He taps against the paper Nate had tacked against the wall. Namely, the _sleeping beauty_ sprawled across the deep, drowning blue-green of Stockholm’s waters. The ones that looked like vines, locking the level in, and everything else – everyone else…

JT stills his pen tapping. Fairy tale. But two levels, instead of one -

He stares at the image of Stockholm and the rough sketch, the so-far not quite cohesive second level and –

“Yes.”, he says, interrupting Josty and Nate, and almost shoving Nate out of the way as he flips over another page of the flip chart. Fairy tales, of course – fuck, he could legit _kiss_ Josty right now and –

He sketches out a tower – the one from the Stockholm level, except this time not just the centre of the level, but a level of its own. More detailed. A good level. He’ll have to make sure it’d be distinguished enough from the first layer, of course – maybe a different tower? If they – maybe SWECOM’s headquarter?

“If we make it a two-layer, we can make it Sleeping Beauty on the first one, lock him all up in his kingdom and all, and on the second –“

“Rapunzel”, Nate says, staring at the sketch.

“It’d give us safety, for sure.”, Josty chimes in, “On the first one, we stir it up – and on the second one we steal from him.”

“The old rattle and hum?”, Nate asks brow furrowed, “Could work. Easy transition between reality and dreams.”

“And we shake him a bit loose, too, we can make it – pretty.”, Josty says and JT has to bite his lip as to not say something about that. Pretty, indeed. He’ll make sure of it.

“Make the loneliness pretty, like a fairy tale waiting for its happy end. And on the second level, we give his subconscious the focus – I’ll design it similar to the head quarters, so he’s going to put the secret in the company safe…”

Next to him, Josty’s beaming at him, so brightly JT quickly has to look away again or else risk – flushing deep red. He always is, around Josty, it feels like.

“That doesn’t work. There’s a -dissonance between the emotional and the company. We’re not supposed to steal his secrets, we’re just supposed to find out whether he’s been bought by rivals.”, Nate says.

Ah. Yeah. Right.

Fuck. They’re not supposed to snoop, to find out about Landeskog.

JT deflates slightly, slumping down on a chair. The level design had been so good, though, and like a real break-through.

Josty looks similarly deflated.

Nate sighs, almost angrily combing through his hair.

“The two-layer idea is great and I think we should keep it. The fairy tale thing, too, JT. The idea regarding Stockholm is great. It’s just this transition – how do we manage the shift from general dreams to the company? We just want the company secrets, after all, not the rest of it. But how?”

No one of them has an idea, or at least no one says a thing.

Mentally, JT sighs and prepares himself for a lot of test-dreaming for the levels. The first one – if Nate already agrees on it, then it’s almost set, but to manage the connection from Landeskog’s life to the company secrets, they’ll definitely need the second level. But hopefully not a third one. – Fuck, he’s going to have to do a lot of dream designing for this one…

*

He can’t call EJ again, not so soon. Time difference is ridiculous between here and Denver. It’s got to be night there, so EJ’s probably asleep and won’t hear him calling. Also it’s stupid to call him again, a few hours after their last talk.

That, and Nate’s supposed to run this show as the point man. JT’s the architect, but he’s not quite ready to lead a team yet – that, and he’s just been in the business for long enough, been taught by the best. He should be able to do this. He should be. It’s just a bread-and-butter run. Why is he struggling with it, then? This is stupid –

It’s just stupid that he’s sitting here again, one eternal, sleepless day? Hours? Later. None the wiser, instead even more of a mess.

Still wanting to hear EJ’s voice,

He _needs_ to hear EJ’s voice. Just – just to believe that he can do it. That he can do it, that he isn’t just the kid playing dress-up in Sid’s footsteps, and that at any second, the business – his colleagues – will find out how he’s been faking it, faking it all, no way is he good enough to deal with any of this. And the fact that this, this simple job, is making him struggle so much, that’s proof of how much and hard he’s been faking it all.

“Tell me more about it.”, EJ tells him, yawning, voice low and crooning. It’s weirdly intimate – and immediately calms Nate down.

He cups his phone, and if he could, he’d crawl into it just to be closer to EJ. And he starts talking about the job, the newest break-through. All of it just to keep EJ up to date, of course, seeing as he hasn’t arrived yet.

“Sorry for calling you again.”, he says, at the end.

“Don’t worry. The horses are okay, I’ll just go to sleep again after I’ve fed them, it’s alright.”, and he yawns again, jaw cracking.

EJ doesn’t sound mad at all. Just sleepy. And it figures that he’d talk about his horses.

“Do you want me to come over sooner? I could be there – tomorrow? Today. Ish. Whatever day it is when I’m in Sweden after taking the next flight.

Nate should say no, because saying yes would leave him open, wide, wide open, and EJ will see right through him and know how much Nate wants and needs him, and having EJ here, in Stockholm, will make it all so much worse. That, and it will do nothing to calm him down to figure it out, because then he wouldn’t just be failing this job – he’d be failing EJ, and that, that would be so much worse. And he’ll also literally think of anything else except the job, with EJ this close

“No, it’s fine.”

It’s a dirty, fat lie, and EJ immediately sees through it.

“Liar!”, he laughs, “Admit it, you’re missing my mug.”

“The one that smells like horses? Fuck no!”, and he’s laughing too, a cracked, sharp noise that’s shocked right out of him as he rubs his face.

“Go to bed.”, EJ orders him, much gentler now, “I’ll get the next flight to Stockholm. Text me your address. I’ll think of something on my way – got a few hours to kill, after all.”

He shouldn’t be this fucking needy, should he? But the thought of EJ being here, just being here, him, all of him right here – it’s – he has to swallow a few times to get rid of all the hot tears burning at his eyes out of sheer frustration. Fatigue is the only thing stilling his tongue and keeping him silent.

If it wouldn’t, he would’ve just. Said it. Words stumbling out, he would’ve blurted out the “god, I love you” that’s been on the tip of his tongue for weeks now, months, years. And it would’ve come out, tumbled into the ocean between them that is just a short phone line after all – EJ is so close to him, right in his ears. Heart, too. No matter where they are, he is with Nate, in a way.

“Thank you”, is all he says, and genuinely means it, too.

It’s not the confession he wants it to be, but at the moment, it’s all he’s allowed to give. And if the relief is too intense, too emotional for a mere ‘thank you’, well. That’s all on him.

*

The line clicks dead and EJ closes his eyes, briefly considering smothering himself with the pillow. An option, but it would also lead to him being dead, so he abstains. For now. But if he keeps going like this, he just might save the world all of his awkwardness and get it over with. Goodness gracious, he couldn’t have been more obvious, Nate must’ve been able to tell – fuck, his adoration is probably visible from space!

With a deep sigh, he opens up his most trusted flight page to find the next connection to Stockholm, Sweden.

*

Nate’s got it all figured out, but something sits wrong with EJ about it. The designs are great, Nate had forwarded them, too, and they’re great, and they feel right in a way EJ can’t quite name. But he trusts his gut feeling in this, it’s been serving him well so far in his dreamsharing career. EJ’s been going under with bad levels, and it’d always blown up.

These levels are good and he’d definitely go under with them, too. Of course, his expertise on that is extremely limited, what with him _not being an actual architect_ nor having seen Stockholm yet. So, yeah. Limited and all, but still, they feel good to him, if he’s honest. He’s had to bet on worse levels and made it out hale and well, so he’d like to give himself that.

– Except these levels don’t do what they’re supposed to do. They’re quite visibly not fishing for company-only secrets, but instead a general grab at a secret. Some secret – not just a tiny, nitty-gritty detail like being bought by opponents, but they were about Landeskog in general – the thing he’d kept secret, what’d made him end up in the life he’s now leading –

_End_ up in the life he’s now leading.

*

He’s several kilometres above the surface of earth when the idea hits him.

*

_Nate, the 2yrs – when did they START?_

*

Nate sits at a café table, just having finished his coffee, reading the message. Next to him, his slice of cherry pie is left forgotten.

*

Landeskog must’ve gone on a deleting spree: Nate’s been combing through everything for hours, without success. Of course he’d checked everything before: bank accounts, social media, phone data, travel movements, credit card, newspapers and other stuff. But he’d only checked how far back his current data streams went back, and they’d all gone back until mid-May two years ago. Across all accounts, so Nate had noted this down as the point of time Landeskog had come back to Sweden. Josty had confirmed that, too, so that had been it.

On the first go, he hadn’t checked when the big break had started – but now he does. Starts with the banking, the phone, travelling: some, he can’t recover, the data being beyond even his capabilities of digging up again. But the majority of accounts is not lost: three and a half years ago. Give or take a few weeks.

In between, for one and a half years, there’s nothing. So whatever it had been, it had happened three and a half years ago. Something had happened during that time.

And suddenly, Nate find something else by coincidence. Something more.

One picture, three years ago. One single picture, on Landeskog’s private insta – it must’ve escaped the mass deleting by lucky chance.

It’s a picture of a sunrise between fir trees in the background, and a hiking trail in the front. And a hiking backpack, leaning against a rock. Sadly, neither a location nor a description, but it’s something to work with – more than Nate’s had in ages. The break in Landeskog’s life starts to feel less like an impossibility and more like a not-yet-uncovered secret.

*

JT spends the rest of the weekend designing...at first, only via sketching things out – but if he’s quite honest, that can only get him so far. Dreams are just not meant to be fleshed out in reality; the only true feeling for them came while dreaming.

So he borrows one of their two PASIVs – but before he can go under, Josty’s walking up to him.

“You about to dream?”, he asks.

The first two buttons of his dress shirt are unbuttoned, JT notices, and the way the fabric is gaping open is so tempting to look at, the sliver of skin…fuck. He bites his lip and looks up, into Josty’s face. It’s only marginally better, because Josty’s just as tempting.

“Fucking around a bit.”, he shrugs, because really, there’s not much to do.

It feels shitty, to laze around at this stage of their job, but honestly: they haven’t even really agreed on anything except the Stockholm level, and that’s not much after all the work they’ve put in. They haven’t even agreed on how to spin it so that Landeskog’s only going to focus on the company secrets! This is all a nightmare of a job.

But JT trusts Nate to – well, find a solution, really. He is going to trust him with his life too, but if JT’s honest, the unease is growing. They won’t have unlimited time – at some point they have to present results. The board members hadn’t been strict, thankfully, but even they want to know before installing Landeskog as a new member. And Nate’s probably out to have the results ready as soon as possible. They might get away with the whole summer, if they’re lucky, JT’d guesstimate.

“Can I come with you? Gotta take my designs for a spin.”

“Sure.”

He doesn’t mind – this dream with Josty will be the first they’ll share: the projects and jobs they’ve been working together so far had them dream with different people, or their paths crossed. And JT’s always giddy to see another professional’s subconscious, if he’s honest. Even if this is going to be…special.

“The usual hour?”

“Yup”, Josty says, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously.

JT puts in the needle, waits for Josty’s Okay, and then they’re off.

*

There are waves lapping at his feet, and they almost sparkle in the bright sun. The air is cool: a perfect summer day, not too warm nor too cool; rather a hazy warmth slowing the world down. Maybe relax some more…

Josty blinks open his eyes, and the sky is vibrantly blue, even through his sun glasses. It smells like sun screen and cinnamon – and like freshly brewed coffee, too.

His stomach grumbles at the smell. Time for a break, he could go for a snack, if he’s honest. The beach is mostly empty, too, so he can go for food and come back still having a good place. So he gets up, brushing the sand off his trousers, looking for a café.

There’s one, not too far away, actually, a quaint little place right at the beachfront, with rickety chairs.

Its walls are painted green.

A lush, deep forest green.

Josty stills, and the world around him falls silent too. The people at the café look up, eyes eerily aware, as they look for something. Someone. But he’s not the one they’re looking for, so after a beat or two, the noises pick up again.

His hand jolts to his pant pocket, where he always keeps his pocket – not that he’d need it. He knows he’s in a dream, and if he hadn’t known, he would’ve known for sure by now.

A dream.

But fuck, does this feel real. Not in the real kind of reality – but in the way Josty’d wish reality was, the way it’d been back when he’d been a kid, it’s warm and welcoming and it feels so much like home – if it was any more, it’d ache.

JT’s one hell of an architect.

Josty buys himself a cup of coffee – of course he has the exact change in his pockets. In his dreams, there’s no fumbling with foreign coins, because hey, he can dream up being able to deal perfectly with this weird Swedish money.

The coffee is blissfully cold, and slightly bitter in his mouth as he walks outside –

\- and stumbles into someone.

It takes him a moment to place him, because he looks so different – it’s JT!

“Your hair! Look at your _hair_!”, he blurts out, almost dropping his iced coffee in shock.

That hair is nothing like upstairs in reality, nothing like it at all! He almost touches it because fuck, did JT forge himself? Did the dream layer mood bleed out over to JT himself? Or the other way around? What’s this? JT looks so different with this – _red_ , his mind supplies, _red,_ he’d learnt that in a dream, once, too.

Under his scrutiny, JT blushes, almost as dark red as his hair, looking to the ground.

“- it’s not like it’s worse than in reality.”, he mumbles, barely getting the words out from how much he’s pulled up his shoulders.

“It’s good hair!”, Josty hurries to agree, because it _is_. It looks really good on JT – and suits him so much better than the muted brown he’d gotten to know him in. Like fire. Copper. Fuck, Josty could keep staring at it – him! – all day long and not have wasted a single second. And he wants to touch him, wants to get his hands all over him and get to know how that hair felt against his skin and –

“It just looks different”, he continues, before his mind is off the rails completely and his subconscious brings something…revealing to the dream.

“Upstairs, you’re a light brunet to me. So yeah, so far I haven’t been able to see all your glorious hair.”

JT swats at him, but his shoulders have relaxed again, and he smiles lightly. Crisis averted, then – JT’s also blushing, so Josty decides to…not drop the topic.

“Suits you better than being brunet, if I’m honest. Looks good.”

The smile on JT’s face gets wider and the flush has no sign of disappearing anytime soon. And JT’s so close, it would be so easy to –

“’m gonna get a coffee.”, JT says and goes to do so.

Josty stays where he is, sipping his iced coffee and admiring JT’s back. And the fiery red hair. It looks very soft, too.

*

Seeing Nate in the flesh again makes him vividly remember why he refuses to go under with other people present. Dealing with Nate in reality is difficult enough: but he can manage it. Can bury it, hide it, twist it into jokes and a friendship and deal with it himself. There are limits, of course; borders he does not allow himself to cross. The fragile lines of propriety, and Nate’s the only one he’s going to make sure to keep them with, ever.

But in dreams, there is no control: if his subconscious has even the smallest amount of freedom, it will force-cram his wants, bursting apart with it. That force, he cannot ever hope to hide away. Not ever.

Simply just not dreaming is just the easiest way to deal with this, and so far it hasn’t failed him. Don’t dream and there won’t ever be the risk of getting what he wants. Getting a taste what can only happen in dreams and never in reality.

*

_A picture of a hiking trail, and in the background fir trees. The only description is a string of hiking-related emojis._

_A similar hiking trail, except this time at night and with a wider view, glittering city lights in the distance. There’s the faint glitter of snow._

_The picture of a golden retriever. In the corner, the paw of another, smaller, fluffier dog._

_Advertisement cookies promoting deals for Stockholm Arlanda (ARN) to Denver International (DEN) and back, active three-and-a-half years ago for one year._

_Bookmarked advertisement for a Scandinavian grocery store in Denver, Colorado._

_A newspaper clipping of a Halloween party. In the background, a laughing couple is kissing, one of them a firefighter and the other one dressed like the cook from ‘Ratatouille’._

_A credit card bill for ticket from Denver International (DEN) to Stockholm Arlanda (ARN). One-way. Hand-luggage only._

_*_

“…and that’s it, basically. Questions?”

Nate clicks the beamer off, looking at everyone. They all seem to mull about what they’ve just seen.

“Who wants to bet on Landeskog running from a break-up?”, EJ finally pipes up, snorting.

Nate’s heart stills, a horribly, awful kind of stillness that kicks into thunder a moment later.

“No way!”, he can hear Josty’s incredulous voice stating that, “No one would move across the world twice just for – what, a relationship? No _way_!”

He wants to tell Josty how wrong he is. That people do it, have done it. That he has done it. Not as far as Landeskog, and not across an ocean. But half the distance. And he’d do it again, at the drop of a hat.

Not for a breakup, not yet, but he’s living on borrowed time, he knows. Denver isn’t his home by itself, it’s – been a new beginning, at first, but it’d grown into a home later, and it has EJ and – and Nate knows himself. EJ won’t be close forever, and EJ has a life outside of dreamsharing, a life he loves with all his might. And soon, he’ll leave dreamshare forever. Will find a love that’s not just horses but a human to share that love for horses with. And EJ loves, with all his power, a huge heart he always denies having, buried under snark.

And what will Nate have after that? Moving away, across oceans, as far away as possible, sounds reasonable in that situation. He could focus on his career. Follow up larger footsteps set out by those he learnt from.

Like Landeskog. Just like Landeskog did.

Fuck, it makes a horrible, awful kind of sense, too. What if EJ’s right? And worse: what if he suggested it because he – thought of it or if he’d done it too, once?

He keeps his voice carefully neutral when he speaks.

“Josty, people do stupid things for love. It wouldn’t be unrealistic, at least, and…it does make sense.”

His heart is thrumming in his chest and he prays that no one will notice. He carefully does not look in EJ’s direction.

*

Something’s up. Josty can’t quite put his finger to it, but he knows it. He’s good with people, it’s what he _does_ , diving into a person until he wears their skin as his own, taking in all the tiny little tics and strange little details that give people their humanity. He watches out for them, all the time, can’t help it, either: it’s his second nature.

Nate is behaving weirdly. At first Josty had thought it was because of EJ arriving, their group dynamic changing. And it has, it is, except – Nate’s been off since EJ mentioned the whole thing about ‘running from love’.

Josty’s been so sure he had a grip on Nate as a person, his character – it is what he can do best, getting a feeling for people. Learning about them. EJ, he can’t quite nail down yet. And since that talk, neither can he grasp this new side of Nate.

Especially love really isn’t the very first thing his mind would’ve jumped to after these facts, ever.

*

JT skips out of the warehouse as soon as he can – ever since EJ arrived, something’s been off. Nate is behaving weirdly and frankly, JT’s stopped counting how often he’d caught him with his thoughts a million miles away, staring into nothing. Or at EJ, who was fiddling with his chemicals and calculating stuff, seemingly unaware of everything around him. A fat lie, if JT’s ever seen one.

And if even he, as an architect, can see that there are things going on – well. Let’s just say that he is staying far, far away from that. Thankfully he can busy himself by completing the levels.

Stockholm is coming along almost seamlessly, it’s easy, with only some minor tweaks. The second level, he starts designing as well – there hadn’t been a shift of focus, nor had Nate said anything else, so JT keeps the idea of a tower.

Rapunzel, it is, then.

He takes the first level tower, at first, but rather soon redevelops it. On the second level, it feels off and wrong to keep the, well, dreamlike quality. They want to get to the bones of it, the underlying issues.

It takes him a few tries, but then, he’s got it: a glass and steel tower, like the SWECOM headquarters. He lifts the glass panes right from the real HQ’s design, but shifts the ground floor structure and it all feels so right, when he sees it come together for the first time.

*

“Wow, it looks gorgeous.”, Josty breathes out, staring up at the tower twirling into the sky until it looked as if it melted into the clouds, glittering and impenetrable.

JT smiles and lowers his head. Internally, he’s preening at the compliment.

“Thanks.”

“No really, this is amazing, wow! – Can we go in?”

“Sure.”

  
And they walk through the tower, whose physics shift around them. A wide staircase, Penrose steps, floating tables and chairs, glittering chandeliers, an elevator. The width and height of the stairs changes, too.

…maybe JT’s showing off a bit. Just a bit, though. But Josty stares at the changes with a exhilarated joy, as if he can’t quite believe what JT can do, and. And then he grins and, well, they trail off a bit. As JT shifts the level, so does Josty forge into different characters, and it’s hard work to keep up with the way Josty seamlessly slips into other people’s skins. At first people they both know, but soon, JT doesn’t recognize the people Josty forges into.

It’s amazing to see what he can do, and JT probably looks just like Josty did, a moment ago.

They don’t get a lot of dream level designing done, but it’s probably the most fun he’s ever had in a dream. Josty grins and his laugh is following him up, into reality. When he wakes up, Josty’s next to him, grinning, patting his shoulders. It feels almost intimate and not quite like something friends do.

*

_we r fcked_ , Josty texts into the group chat, a few days later, and EJ squints at it. What? Why did they – Nate had said they were rather free in this job, so EJ’d given himself some more time to hammer out several somnacin mixes. He hadn’t been able to get all his mixes and chemicals through to Sweden, so he’d had to redesign some mixes. Just in case. Well, maybe Nate wanted different batches? Or wanted the levels to have a bit of different boosts. Who knows.

_?_ , is all Nate posts in the chat, so EJ puts his phone away again. Whatever it is, it can wait. They’ll learn it soon enough.

Until then, he can busy himself with his calculations and his chemicals. They were easy. Mix a chemical to somnacin and the dream would become more stable. Or more instable. The subconscious would be muffled. Or more active, easier to spill secrets. Mix it on different levels and get stacked effects. It’s easy to calculate. Easy to modify. Easy to do, in general.

He mixes up his most stable batch, the one whose recipe everyone tried to re-imagine but no one had gotten quite down. The one that’d give them the most amount of time without completely locking off Landeskog’s subconscious. It could be easily tweaked.

*

“Landeskog’s taking a vacation!”, Josty bursts out as soon as he enters the warehouse.

Nate’s hand is jerking halfway to his gun, before he relaxes again. Just Josty. Not a projection. He knows how he got here.

“Where?”, JT asks, already cracking open his book again.

As is Nate – he hadn’t known about the holiday, so he’s going to look up –

“The – Stockholm islands, these tiny ones?”

“Skärgården”, Nate says and only slightly winces at how much he must’ve just butchered the Swedish pronounciation of it, “When?”

“That’s the thing.”, Josty says, and grimaces.

Something tells Nate he won’t like this _at all_.

*

“Come with us.”, Nate asks.

He looks exhausted – worn down. And EJ is weak, would do anything to wipe this expression off of Nate’s face. Anything, except what Nate is asking.

“No.”, he says, turning around to look outside again. The street outside is surprisingly lively, despite the late hour, people still milling around. Swedish summer, indeed – the window glass is muffling the noises. So many people and none of them had any idea what’s going on so close to them.

Across them, the windows of Landeskog’s flat are still lit, later than usual. Tomorrow, he will go to spend the weekend in his summer house at the _Stockholms skärgård_ , in a lovely little red-painted house. Tomorrow, Josty will drug Landeskog’s _fika_ coffee, and they will help Landeskog along to his summer house. Tomorrow.

In a few hours.

But now, they’re still in this…limbo, of sorts. Right now, they are not. Right now, this is not a job. Right now, it is just them.

And Nate’s pleading him to do something he has sworn to never do: sharing his dreams. With him. With Nate, of all people!

“EJ, please.”, he asks again.

“Why?”, and he fails to say it angrily, although he wants to. Wants to spit it out, sharp and pointy.

Nate sighs and when EJ turns his head to look at him –

Nate’s wearing the whole job on his shoulders, and while EJ can’t understand why it is this job that hits him hard, it does, and Nate looks _bad_. And not in the way that would mean he’s trying to fish for compliments or aiming to manipulate EJ.

“Please, EJ. I trust Josty and JT…wouldn’t have picked them if I didn’t. It’s just…”, he sighs, wiping his face as he drops into an arm chair.

“EJ, they’re so _young_.”

  
Yeah, EJ knows what Nate means, immediately. Neither JT nor Josty have scraped at the bottom of the barrel yet – and if they had, it hadn’t happened as often as EJ and Nate experienced. Some things could only be beaten into your bones by experience alone.

EJ’s not lying to himself: his refusal to go under also means that a lot of the usual dreamsharing problems have escaped him so far. But even he has been under often enough, or has worked on big jobs – some of those hadn’t just blown up in dreamspace but also in reality, too. Most did, too.

That, and failures can happen during all stages of the job and in all parts: it doesn’t even take much. One participant with a nasty secret they’d refused to admit to themselves, undiscovered subconscious guards. Or the wrong batch of somnacin, an allergy to the components of the somnacin mix, an interruption in reality, betrayal in reality – dreams were fickle and fragile. And no one who worked on them for long enough came out at the other end untouched nor unchanged.

Of course Nate wants someone experienced at his back. It should warm EJ, that he’s among those, now, having escaped limbo successfully so far; dealing with difficult jobs. It’s a hollow warmth, that he’s in Nate’s high regards.

“You really trust them?”

EJ shouldn’t ask. Asking is just one step closer to agreeing and that cannot happen. Must not, not ever, not if it means having Nate of all people in his dreams.

“I do. But, god, I want the security, you know? I _trust_ you.”

And it hits the soft spot of EJ’s heart, the one he cannot protect properly, ever. Hook, line, sinker. And the way Nate said it, full of conviction, warms even the darkest parts of EJ’s heart, the parts that had grown sad and numb after years of having feelings that could never go anywhere and never would, either.

In dreamsharing, trust is everything. Feelings can be manipulated: EJ’s seen it, too, during a job. Or they could be faked, could be incepted, could be stolen, destroyed – like memories, too.

But trust, now that is something else. Trust can only grow, nourished, like a plant. 

Trust is: placing your life in someone else’s hands and believing they’ll keep it.

He swallows and looks at Nate, the way he’s half-bathed in shadows and half glowing in the faint shine of the street lights. The lines of his body, solid and broad and strong, but now bent in exhaustion.

“But why?”, he asks, with a scratchy voice.

Why me?, EJ wants to ask, Why not someone else? Why now? And perhaps also: Why am I in love with you, even after all these years? Why was once not enough?

It’s a dangerous route to walk, he’s aware, because he’s been asking himself these questions for a long, long time already.

“Because you’re –“, and Nate trails off, doesn’t finish.

He’s turned towards EJ, eyes wide even in the darkness, and his face open, so wide open and hopeful and EJ’s heart is thumping wildly, because this, this moment, it’s – it’s something, it feels like it could be, like he could be – like they _are_ –

He leans forward, just a small movement –

It feels like there’s no distance between them at all, even despite the physical distance. Like they, as people, are right _there_ with each other, close, just a breath apart, a heartbeat.

Like EJ _could_ \- if he dared.

He doesn’t – his heart almost jolts out of his ribcage, but he looks at Nate, keeps looking at him, and for the first time in days, it’s not weird between them. For the first time in as long as they’ve known him, it feels mutual. It must be visible all across his face, written in every line of his body, and Nate must see it, too – _but he looks the same_. Wide and blooming and hopeful, as if he, too, could if he dared. And doesn’t dare to actually do it.

“Yeah”, he breathes quietly, voice barely more than a breath.

Nate smiles, relief washing over his face, and even with the exhaustion, he looks breathtaking.

He usually does, yes, but right now, EJ feels like – like falling in love with him has never really been a choice. It’s always been something he would’ve done, would have felt for Nate.

*

The next day starts too early, at four thirty, their phones wake them up. They have to be up and ready. Not enough sleep, not for any of them, although for different reasons. But they are as prepared as they’ll ever be – that is to say: rather rushed.

Landeskog acts no different than on any other day so far. Getting up, breakfast, leaving for work: it happens exactly the same way it has happened since they’ve been observing him. For him, nothing has changed.

At seven, Josty arrives at work and doesn’t report back in until nine, when he texts the group chat: _All normal. Work’s a clusterfuck – everyone’s panicking and realizing they MUST talk to Landeskog. He’s looking excited. Sister called in, she’ll visit him tomorrow. Otherwise see you at fika._

The fact that Beatrice Landeskog will visit Landeskog tomorrow turns up the pressure a notch. Objectively, it will take them less than an hour, in reality, to be done with their business. If even that much. Even if it goes wrong, they’ll be long gone, having wiped their traces, before Beatrice Landeskog has visited her brother. The majority of work will happen in dreamspace, anyways, and there, they can take all the time they want.

It’s the fact that someone will arrive and they know about that person. If they fuck up, Landeskog’s sister will find them. If they ruin this and get stuck in limbo – or if even just one gets stuck, they’re out of luck even more so than usual.

No one says it. Not at this stage of the job, but they’re all thinking it. Limbo is the biggest fear, and it stays with everyone who works in dreamshare, no matter how long. Sooner or later, everyone knew someone or had heard of someone lost in limbo.

At three o’clock, Josty sends a single coffee cup emoji.

That’s their sign.

It’s on.

At quarter past three, Josty stumbles into Landeskog at the coffee shop, and it distracts Landeskog enough that JT can lean over from his table and slip sleeping aid into his coffee. Strong enough to make him woozy, but slow-acting enough Landeskog doesn’t fall over immediately.

At half past three, Landeskog almost loses balance in a side street on the way back to work. EJ’s the one who catches him, laughing it off with a joke. Landeskog’s wobbly and definitely struggling to stay on his feet. But he’s still able to talk, so EJ helps him towards the direction of the SWECOM headquarter.

With every step, Landeskog gets woozier, almost falling over, even with EJ holding him upward and having his arm around him. His eyes start slipping as well.

Quarter to four, EJ gently lowers him into the van they’ve prepared. Landeskog’s almost completely out, but to make sure, EJ gives him another medication. This time, it will work slower, but for a longer time, less intensive than the one he currently has and without interfering with the somnacin later on.

And then they’re on their way to Landeskog’s summer house.

They arrive an hour later, after the short drive and an even shorter trip with the motor boat. Landeskog’s still out like a light.

*

“Everyone?”, Nate asks.

Three nods.

He pushes the plunger.

*

It smells like cinnamon and coffee, warm and luring him in, what a déjà vu, it’s just like –

The dream with Josty.

He blinks open his eyes, looking down at a half-empty coffee mug and a plate with some cinnamon roll crumbs, and knows for a fact that he cannot remember eating and drinking any of it.

A dream.

Dreaming. He’s dreaming and they’re on the job.

JT blinks his eyes open: he’s sitting in a little café, similar to the one close to Landeskog’s job. Similar, but not identical: it’s a mix of everything that makes up a cozy café. JT’s taken creative liberty. It is supposed to remind Landeskog of home – but in a softer way. Warmer. No pressure at all, take down your weariness and just gently follow the dream into the subconscious truths.

“And here I thought you couldn’t impress me more.”, someone suddenly says, leaning against the table, hip cocked slightly, and he is very, very inviting. And his thigh is right there.

JT looks away from the way it’s stretching the green shorts that are just that tiny tad too short to be appropriate in a non-beach setting. And Josty’s also wearing bright red shoes, like a Dorothy updating her wardrobe to the 21st century.

“Really making use of the whole dream thing?”, he asks, carefully not mentioning the compliment Josty’d paid him. If this was reality, he might’ve – but as it is, they’re on a roll.

Josty laughs, and it gives him dimples. A dangerous combination, especially with his wild curls. JT turns away, looking outside. In the dream, the beach is only a street away, waves gently lapping against the shore.

“Always, buddy.”, and he winks at JT, before he –

Well, JT’s never looked directly at anyone forging, not even in the first dream they’d shared together. Back then, he’d only looked at him from the corner of his eyes to check when he’d forge, not how he forged at all.

Now, it looks like ripples in a pond, if he’s honest, except the pond is Josty’s face and then, suddenly, it’s the secretary lady, in a pin-striped blazer and matching pants.

JT blinks at him. That’s. That’s something, for sure.

She – he? Josty, well, except he’s her, so she, in a way, but mainly Josty, so he? Winks at him, and yeah, that’s definitely Josty’s smile.

Josty turns around and goes to order a coffee. Her? His? High heels click on the parquet as she walks away. It’s so weird how there is not a single trace of Josty left in her.

But he’s not here to keep looking at Josty, is he. Landeskog is the reason they’re doing this. For a moment, JT closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Alright. He can do it. They’re on a job, he can do this.

He doesn’t check in with Josty, if all is going well – doesn’t need to. So far, Landeskog’s subconscious is quiet: the café is buzzing with life, and all patrons are relaxed. It’s a fairly good indicator that Landeskog hasn’t realized so far, but JT doesn’t want to jinx it, so he keeps to himself, ordering another cinnamon bun to go with his coffee. It’s still as hot as it was when he woke up in the dream, and still a full cup, despite him having drunk more than half of it already. God, he loves dreams. Perpetual coffee.

The tiny wind chime above the door announces new customers, and reflexively, JT looks up, as inconspicuously as he can, in case trouble starts brewing. Of course, as the dreamer – and the architect to boot! -, he is in control what happens on this level. But he’d rather keep his manipulations as unnoticeable as he can, lest he risks tipping off Landeskog’s subconscious either too early or at all.

It’s Nate and EJ, walking in through the door, both wearing civilian clothes. Short pants, shirt, sun glasses. Every inch tourists on their vacation, enjoying their time off and hopping in for a _fika_. Nothing special.

JT takes another bite of cinnamon roll and very carefully takes notice how close Nate and EJ are, bodies turned towards each other. And aren’t they a bit close, too? Hmm. And that after how awkward they’d been after talking about – love.

Oh.

He gulps down a mouthful of coffee, burning his tongue slightly in the process.

The projections don’t even stir.

JT finishes his cinnamon bun, putting away the plate, so it’s out of the way for his newspaper.

Nate steps up to the counter, EJ a half step behind him, and orders for them both.

The barista grabs paper cups, a cheery smile on their face, -

-

And ringing silence drops upon the café.

The projections whirl around, staring at Nate. It’s silent enough that even a pin drop would be akin to a gunshot.

JT dreams up a gun in his hand, for the moment keeping it under the table as to not make matters worse. His body is tense enough to leap at a moment’s notice, but he doesn’t dare moving, because anything that breaks this spell will unleash hell on them –

“What did you say the name was?”, the barista asks.

Their voice is quiet, but sharp, needles scraping the silence.

“Nothing.”, EJ says, “He said it was nothing.”

His eyes are hard, face harsh and body tense, staring into the barista’s face, daring them to disagree. Well. It’s not like he can make it any worse, is it.

“No, I don’t think so.”, the barista says, words drudged up from somewhere deep.

A chair screeches across the floor. A projection has gotten up. Up there, close to the exit. JT raises the gun slowly -

“Shit”, EJ curses, grabbing Nate’s elbow, and they drop –

All hell breaks loose, a projection throwing a chair at where their heads had been a second before. JT shoots the barista and a second projection, hurling his cup at the third. Giving Nate and EJ enough time to run to the back, JT hot at their heels, thundering through a small highway out into a backyard.

With a thundering scrape, JT throws the door shut, dreaming up a massive steel trashcan to keep it shut. The angry thumping against the door tells him: not a second too early.

They keep running. Through the streets of Stockholm, they run – but there’s no shelter to be found for them, it seems. Although the city is, surprisingly, less densely populated than he’d have expected. It’s their luck: they don’t have to shoot that many projections. Which is excellent, because even as it is, it’s hell. The projections are attacking them from all sides. As soon as they’re seen, they’re attacked.

JT’s grabbed from doors, from windows – and he shoots, of course he does, because the fingers and nails are digging into his skin hard enough to break skin, to rip out his hair, to drag him inside or rip him apart – if he lets them. So he doesn’t.

“Fuck!”, and even before it registers, he whirls around and shoots –

The projection drops dead, and Josty shakes it off. His eyes are wide, and he’s un-forged. On his throat, there are five purpling finger prints. But he’s alive, the projections haven’t gotten him, he’s -

“Hurry the fuck up, don’t stay, idiots!”, EJ hollers from down the street.

The moment’s broken, they continue running through Stockholm. There’s not a single car on the streets, not even a scooter, nothing, everything except any transport is there. And so many projections. It’s like all zombie games JT’s ever played, except it’s happening to him right now, fuck. If only he could stay still for a second, take a breath, and dream up a car to get them out of here faster.

No luck. He keeps following Nate leading them all through the winding streets of Stockholm. And soon he recognizes it: Nate’s taking the shortcuts through the maze, to shake off some projections. They don’t know about the shortcuts, and it buys them precious time. God, JT’s never been this happy that his layers have been vetted and learnt by other, ever, as much as he is right now with Nate.

Enough to stumble towards the water – JT almost falls in, but thankfully, he’s grabbed by the shoulder at the last moment.

“Hey, watch out.”, Josty laughs, breathlessly, his hand slipping up slightly – an accident? It settles high on JT’s shoulder, one finger touching the bare skin of his throat -

“JT, a hand?”, Nate quips, one eyebrow raised.

Fuck.

Alright. JT closes his eyes – and when he opens them, there’s a small boat. Just big enough to fit them all, but small enough that they’ll be fast.

Behind them, he can hear the projections gathering, angry, and something is hurled their way. They duck, and – fuck, is that a couch? Looks like it, as it’s sinking into the beach.

“What happened?”, Josty asks, out of breath.

JT starts speeding them out of here. Outside, they might take a second to take a breath in the Stockholm archipelago, before devising a new strategy.

“No idea. I just asked for a coffee. Maybe the name?”

“Seems likely – the projections stared after you told them you want the coffee for ‘Nate Mack’”, and EJ’s voice is tinged with laughter at the nickname, pronouncing the quotation marks and all.

“But why would they go berserk over a _nickname_?”, Nate asks, incredulously. s

“Guys!”, Josty pipes up, and points his arm towards something, and as it’s in JT’s periphery, he looks, too. It’s…another boat. Another boat that’s not coming towards them, despite there being people on board. Projections. Projections that are not attacking them? After how they’d been like in the city itself? Yeah, JT’s neither blind nor stupid.

“Nate.”, he just says, warningly and behind him, there’s the clicking of several weapons being readied.

“I’m going to get you as close as I can. Brace yourself.”, and he kicks up the speed as far as it will go.

The boat jolts, before knifing through the water in a wide circle, cutting through it. A good call, because there’s the faint _pop! pop! pop!_ of gunfire. Thankfully doesn’t hit, as far as JT can tell.

Keeping the boat still as much as possible to give the others the best shooting range is a task: more than once, JT has to basically spin them on a needle’s pin to get them out of the crossfire. He manages, but barely – no one lands in Stockholm’s waters.

“Get closer.”, Nate orders, breathing faster from exertion.

Hesitatingly, JT does, the boat slowly getting closer to the other. Those projections still haven’t shot, and he really does not trust the peace at all. Something’s – off about it. He just knows. He’s sure. He is absolutely, one hundred percent sure. His subconscious might not have provided the projections, but it sure as fuck has provided the structures themselves, and he knows himself: something’s off.

The boat is big enough to hide something in its belly.

After the last projection is shot, JT steers closer, until they’re able to hop on board of the other boat. Ship? Nate gestures to EJ, something JT can’t make out, before Nate gestures at him, and then at Josty. Their order, then. He nods.

With a returning nod, Nate climbs over the other boat’s rail, his light shoes making no noise. It’s silent except for the light noises of waves and some sea gulls shrieking overheads. The other projections are, for the moment, quiet. Won’t be long, then, probably.

JT follows EJ, and can feel Josty at his back. The knowledge that someone will watch his six is comforting – now it’s not him anymore being the last, finally.

The boat’s empty. No one’s there. Their steps echo in the narrow spaces, and the lights are off, drawing shadows where none should be – it’s messing with their heads. The silence is oppressive, and at any second, JT expects another projection to pop out and attack them. They are walking in a line and the space is limited, they’d be easy targets.

Nate’s gun is unerringly drawn as they check out the rooms. It takes forever, because they do it as quietly as they can. Room after room, until there’s only one left.

The captain’s room.

The feeling in JT’s belly gets _worse_.

He takes a breath.

It barely makes a noise, but apparently enough: Nate gets tenser, and even more careful, as he nudges the door open.

“Come in.”, a resigned voice calls out, “It’s not like I could shoot you.”

…fuck, it’s Landeskog.

Nate steps through the door, and for a tiny, abysmally long moment JT expects this to blow up in their faces. Perhaps literally. _Probably_ literally – a bomb would be the cherry on top of this whole clusterfuck.

Nothing happens, however: Nate just enters the captain’s room, where Landeskog is sitting in a chair, looking at them head on, as if expecting execution. Considering he has three guns trained at him, ready to shoot at the tiniest twitch: a logical conclusion, really.

“Mr. Landeskog, I’m sure you will excuse us.”, EJ suddenly says, pocketing his gun and moving next to Nate, pulling open a compartment in the captain’s table. Inside, there’s a shiny PASIV.

What is he doing?

JT doesn’t leave Landeskog out of his eyes at all, but he seems as confused as they all are. EJ sets up the PASIV at the captain’s table, nonchalantly shoving away papers and a compass, which all clutters to the ground. Landeskog is very, very still.

Only when EJ steps up to him, needle in hand, does he move: he looks up, right at EJ’s face, face hard and unforgiving:

“I’ll get you.”, he promises, his voice that of a trapped animal ready to fight, regardless of consequences

JT shivers, something in him turning cold.

“That’s alright.”, EJ says, smiling sweetly and bitingly at him in a way that also flashes his teeth, before pressing the plunger.

Landeskog’s head lolls down almost immediately.

“Shit, what are you doing?”, Nate hisses at EJ, “If he’s the dreamer –“

“He isn’t.”, EJ interrupts him, standing up to his full height again. He’s taller than Nate, JT notices, and right now he has absolutely no problems seeing the chemist that has been in dreamshare for more than a decade already. Easy to forget, usually, but like this, JT can totally see it.

“It’s a somnacin blend that dispels dreaming. He literally couldn’t dream even if he tried.”

“How long?”, Josty asks, interestedly staring at the PASIV.

“With his size and agitation level? Only a few more minutes, tops. The mix is extremely unstable.”

“How does that even work, dreamsite?”

“It’s a dream.”, EJ shrugs, pulling a chair from thin air to sit down, “We can bring what we want and I want this mix. In reality it does the same what it’s doing right now, so.”, he looks at JT, corner of his mouth twitching slightly, “I figured bringing something couldn’t make this any worse. No offense.”

“None taken”, JT says, because really, he can acknowledge this has all the potential to blow up in their faces if not treaded carefully.

“Nate.”, JT says quietly, and Nate’s head jerks up, “This will get worse soon. I don’t know how much time I’ll be able to buy you. Try to get it done as fast as you can.”

They might be on water, but JT’s not lying to himself: Landeskog’s subconscious will probably find ways to get to them. With how aggressive the projections were, they will try with all their might.

“Alright.”, Nate answers, just as quietly, and nods. He takes a deep breath, before pulling up a small chair for himself as well. They’re all sitting on the ground, holding out their arms, ready for the needle. Josty’s sitting on the floor, apparently not having bothered with a chair at all.

“Okay. Everyone?”

Josty and EJ stop discussing the somnacin-or-another and look at Nate.

“Change of plans, I’m going to be the dreamer of the next level.”, he states.

A beat.

“But -!”, Josty starts, and he’s suddenly pale.

Because if he won’t be the dreamer anymore, that means that he will be on the team to perform the actual inception. They hadn’t agreed on that, not at all: Josty had volunteered to provide the second level, the tower. At first only a suggestion, but after Nate had seen how well he’d been able to dream up the level, he had agreed. And hadn’t asked why Josty had dreamt up the level in an almost identical style like JT.

“Josty, Landeskog’s…opinion will probably carry over and frankly, I don’t think he’ll like me more next level, so he might not exactly respond well to me breaking into his safe. Or anything else, really.”

EJ huffs out a breath that’s half a laugh.

“Unlikely. - Listen, kid, so what? We’ll do it, then, whatever. Welcome to dreamsharing 101, today’s lesson is flexibility –“

The PASIV beeps once.

Immediately, EJ kneels down, grin wiped off his face.

“Thirty seconds. Josty, Nate?”

Nate sits down on the floor, holding out his arm. Under the fluorescent lights, his vein is bluish under the off-pale skin.

“Shit _fucking_.”, Josty curses, heartfelt. His face is grey-washed in fear.

Right when JT thinks that’s it, they’ll fight over it, over this massive change of plans – Josty holds out his arm. Quickly, JT sets all three of them up.

  
“If it gets down to it, _you’re_ going to pull of the theft!”, he says.

“Sure.”, EJ shrugs.

Shit, they’re really doing this. JT’s almost happy he won’t be in the middle of any of it. Changing plans while on the job was a recipe for disaster, no matter how good the people working it. Yes, no, he’d rather keep on running from Landeskog’s subconscious as long as he can.

A double beep.

“Ten.”, EJ hisses.

One last time, JT checks all of them. The PASIV signals they’re all ready to go.

“See you on the other side.”, he says.

Three beeps.

JT presses the plunger.

*

Nate wakes to acrid smoke in his nose and the dry heat of too many things _burning_.

Fuck, and that shouldn’t be what he’s supposed to wake up to at all. Ever. He blinks open his eyes and looks around.

Glass and steel, alright. Tower, too. But towers, plural: this is not the design JT’d developed, not at all. At first, he can’t recognize what it is, because it’s all glass and steel, literally: the streets are canyons of cracked asphalt buried amidst skyscrapers howling with wind. It is closed-off and void of life –

And nothing at all like they wanted. This is no home, and this will not make Landeskog trust them at all, if ever. Fuck. And how the fuck had he dreamt up this? This is the least professional he’s ever been – he has never, not once in his career, fucked up a level like this! It doesn’t even look close to what he’s supposed to lay out for them -

“Well, less cozy than expected.”, EJ’s voice close to him says, suddenly.

Nate briefly closes his eyes, willing his heart to stop going crazy. And he shrugs, as if this could happen to anyone, that a level is so disfigured.

“Let’s go”, is all he offers, and off they go, looking for Landeskog in this postapocalyptic setting.

“Is it all yours?”, EJ asks later, when they’ve walked for a long time and Josty’s busy securing the street corner.

“Not all of it.”

It’s a half-baked answer at most, but it’s the best Nate can offer without spilling it all right in front of EJ.

Because yes, a lot of the actual damage on this level’s been wrought by Landeskog’s projections fighting against him – looks like he had been right, that Landeskog wouldn’t respond well to any of this well. Good thing he won’t be on the team performing the actual extraction, then.

But the overall level design, the skyscapers and the impenetrable, sterile, lifeless glass? Apparently that’s all on him. but why must his subconscious pull all of this up right now? When it matters? Couldn’t it have done so later, when it’s just him, when it’s not – not EJ, seeing all of it?

He looks at EJ, tall and unusually serious, and his heart clenches.

In the distance, there’s the roar of fire.

*

JT’s put on the sonar he’s dreamt up for the boat. In reality, it would be unrealistic, but in his dream, he can, so he does. It’s not like he’ll have to further consider keeping it modest as to not attract projections.

So he dreams up all protective measures he can. Against mines, torpedoes, bombs, everything. He’d rather be the pessimistic sack that went overboard with protection than being the stupid sack that went physically overboard with a boat shot to pieces and the dream collapsing around him. Who knew what would happen on the second level if he makes a mistake? At best, they might just jerk out of the dream, and with the time lag, they’d never make it back in time. At worst, they might tumble right down to limbo.

He navigates the boat into the Stockholm archipelago and kicks up a nasty weather: dusk rapidly dropping, with rolling fog and the sea spraying high enough to provide cover. It won’t be enough to throw Landeskog’s subconscious off forever, but it will mean a few precious extra minutes. Any second he can keep the level stable and them all from crashing out of here might mean the minute they need on the second level. What had been the transfer rate again? EJ’d told him, hadn’t he, when he’d talked about the somnacin mixes. A minute to an hour? Maybe? He’s not sure. But he needs to hold out as long as he can.

*

It doesn’t make any sense, but they’ve been wandering Denver for quite some time now, and Nate’s never felt a clammy feeling in his stomach that’d signal him that Landeskog as the second dreamer was close. And seeing as all they’ve been walking were empty streets: well. Only one conclusion left from that point. Landeskog’s probably at the worst of the fighting.

“He’s probably at the centre.”, he says.

His voice echoes strangely in the void street, catching in the gaping maws of splintered windows. Perfect hiding spots for snipers, but so far it’s just been them. Josty flinches at the noise, before turning to look at him. He’s grim, and slightly ashen still, and it looks ill on his face – there should be a grin, Nate knows, Josty’s not the one to look as serious as he does now.

“Lead the way.”

Nate doesn’t dare looking at EJ, and he prays, to whoever will hear him, that his subconscious won’t make it worse. That he isn’t this much of an amateur – why has he brought so much to the dream? This is what beginners do, when they start their career in dreamsharing and don’t know any better. But he’s a professional, he knows what he’s doing and so far, he has never made a rookie mistake like this! Not since his first dream, the one Sid hat to shoot him awake from – and – Nate has never. He has been better, he _is_ better.

And yet his subconscious is revolting.

The closer they get to the centre, the more Nate can see it. The projections are not attacking them: they hurry towards the worst of the clamor, where the hot, sharp smoke is sprawling from. But that’s not that what’s bothering Nate. No.

There are heart graffities on the walls. Not the cheesy abstract emoji ones – anatomical hearts in a deep, dark red, colour still shiny, dripping colour down the walls. It looks raw and cracked open. At first only one or two, but the closer they get, the more there are. Like a walking cliché. As if his subconscious is trying to shove it into his face, when he cannot ignore it any longer.

He tries to wipe one off – this is his dream, he should do whatever he wants.

The heart disappears – only to be replaced by a wall-sized picture of EJ, the one when he’d won his first race, beaming with pride about his horse finally breaking the spell –

Nate swallows heavily, hastily putting the heart back. It stays, mocking him.

He doesn’t want to see it. Any of it. There is absolutely nothing subtle about hearts of all things, and from there it’s not difficult to make the connection, is it? Nate’s sure he hasn’t been able to hide his feelings as good as he wants to. They must be his worst kept secret. A miracle no one has used it against him so far.

And now, it’s on display, for them all to see.

For EJ to see, too, and it will be only a matter of time until he’ll understand. It has to be. Nate’s got to hurry this job along so EJ won’t –

A splintering crash –

He whirls around, gun ready.

But it’s just a fight at the end of the street. The worst one they’ve encountered, with projections huddling behind a barricade, throwing pavement stones, debris, and glass bottles – no, Molotov cocktails: the bottles burst into fire as soon as they hit. From the other side, outside of view, there’s water hosing down, drenching the barricade. A few times, there’s golden hair flashing in the shine of fire bursting across the street – golden hair, and wide shoulders, tall.

And they’ve seen it, all three of them, Nate guesses, going by the hiss of EJ drawing in a breath and Josty cursing quietly. It could be a coincidence, of course, and there could be many projections with this hair colour, or this body shape, this being nothing but a coincidence. But it’s a dream. Dreams work on illogical – or _too_ logical - coincidences, don’t they?

_Facts matter less than beliefs_ , Sid had told him, an eon ago, in a dream half-forgotten.

“I’m gonna check it out, okay?”, Josty says quietly.

Going alone in a dream as hostile as this is a risk, Nate’s full aware of it and how ironic it is, seeing as this is his dream. But Josty’s their safest bet: he didn’t kick off Landeskog on the first level, and he’s the forger. Him going alone does make sense, Josty’s best suited for this right now, so he just nods.

EJ shrugs. His hands are still firmly on a gun as he checks out the looming windows and crannies for projections out to hurt them.

So far, it’s calm – as calm as it can be, in this situation, at least.

Josty lets his gun disappear and forges himself younger: a teenager, with the wide eyes of someone out to do something illegal for the first time, and thrilled by it. The kind of kid one might expect during a skirmish – but would drag back out in case things went south. A good forge, really.

Nate steps into a doorway, out of sight, just to make sure – and yes, the projections don’t look at them.

“Let’s hope they won’t eat him alive.”, EJ murmurs into his ear.

Shit, he’s right behind Nate, isn’t he? Nate can feel EJ’s warmth against his back – is the doorway really this small that they must stand so close? But he can’t legitimately say anything without making it worse: it’s the wrong moment to put distance between them, this is the worst moment ever to react on his stupid crush or draw attention to it.

His heart threatens to lurch out of his chest, because it would be so easy to lean back, so easy to ask for a hug and feel EJ’s arms around him and maybe EJ’d put his chin on Nate’s shoulders, like it was nothing – Nate doesn’t have to look for it to know that somewhere close to them, a heart must’ve popped up, vibrant even in the washed-out grey of the doorway.

So they stay close, almost pressed together, and look at Josty walking up to the barricade, and for a second Nate thinks this might work: Josty starts talking to them, and while the projections seem weary of a stranger, they look willing to let them in.

A woman holds out her hand to Josty, a half-smile on her lips, as if to greet him. Josty smiles at her, his teenage forge transforming into a beaming, bright smile, as he enthusiastically shakes the hand.

Whatever he says –

The barricade stills, all eyes fixed on Josty.

“Fuck, what’s it with Landeskog and names?!”, EJ hisses from behind him.

Helplessly, they watch the scene unfold: the projections start screaming, attacking Josty – and they can’t do anything without giving themselves away, spoiling their presence in the dream. Risking themselves. They need to stay here.

Thankfully, Josty has the right idea after one heart-stopping, too-long moment: a gunshot.

And the barricade falls calm again, projections returning to their work again.

There their best bet goes.

*

JT almost crashes the boat into one of the sharp rocks barely above the water level as he hears someone violently thrashing below deck. For fuck’s sake! And he can’t even check out who it is or if it’s all of them, because he’s busy trying to out-run the projections. They’ve found boats.

This is starting to become genuinely serious.

He hadn’t needed to worry: Josty sprints out of the boat’s bowels, to lean across the rail, trying and failing to throw up. Useless in a dream, but the reaction’s still there. JT’s been there, done that, tried it too and felt even more horrible when waking up.

“You ok?”, he asks, over the crashing of waves and the boat’s motor trying to keep up with his demands.

“Fuck no!”, Josty shouts back, visibly trying to get back from whatever kicked him up to this level again, “Landeskog’s got some _serious_ problems with fucking names!”

JT blinks at him – but the whizz of a bullet pinging off of somewhere on this boat quickly makes him reconsider and instead haul more ass.

Hopefully Josty doesn’t get seasick.

*

“What happened?”, Nate asks, as soon as they’re within earshot of the projections.

They still look more hostile than they did with Josty, but at least they’re not outright attacking them immediately. Small mercies. Nate would’ve expected them to go mad immediately, but so far, their fragile luck is holding steady.

Landeskog’s not visible, so he’s probably in one of the tents or huts. God, this will be a nightmare to scope out, and even worse to get closer or find anything out.

“Who are you?”, the woman asks, her eyes sharp. She looks remarkably like Beatrice Landeskog, if Nate’s honest, and it makes his stomach clench up. If she’s related to Landeskog, then it might be likely she’s more cognisant than a normal projection.

“Raymond. Call me Ray.”, Nate says, praying to god this isn’t yet another name on Landeskog’s hate list.

She nods at him, her gaze wandering to EJ.

“Rob.”, he says, and holds out his hand.

The woman doesn’t take it, just looks at them critically for a moment longer, her pale eyes sharp enough to dig into them, it feels like – but then she nods, steps aside.

Nate follows her. Knowing that EJ’s at his back does nothing to calm him down at all. Usually, it would: but now they’re literally in enemy’s territory, surrounded by projections that had no qualms attacking Josty so badly he had to kick himself up. And their eyes are still trained on both of them, Nate can almost feel them physically. EJ and him are outnumbered here, and only one twitch, it would be over. Trying again with a subconscious as tumultuous as this would be nigh to impossible.

*

“- it’s been like this since the beginning?”

“Ye-es”, JT grinds out, “Brace!”, he yells, forcing the boat into yet another hair pin curve that has Josty sprawling against him with force, despite both their efforts to hold on.

Behind them, at least one boat crashes against the rocks. Success!

Considering neither of them is fishing in Stockholm’s water, JT’s willing to count his wins liberally.

“Fuck.”, Josty says, picking up his gun again and returning fire. It doesn’t make much of a dent in the ever-growing number of projections.

If that isn’t just the perfect summary for this whole shitshow. Hopefully Nate and EJ are on their way to figure things out on the second level. Preferably quick to do so, too.

*

The clanging and scraping of dinner being handed out covers their quiet talking – the projections have mostly accepted them as newbies. People that couldn’t be trusted with the more intimate details of a barricade, but that could – and would – be used to haul heavy stuff around. It’s what they’ve been doing until Nate had slowly started letting night fall, before they tired too much by the work to keep on with the job. By now, it is too dark to risk them walking around much – apparently, the police cracks down at night. Of course it does.

“We can’t extract here.”, Nate tells EJ, voice muffled even in the hubbub of dinner.

EJ wipes his bowl clean with the last chunk of bread, eyes flitting around. Always watching out. Nate can relate, he does the same. Always watching out to make sure the projections wouldn’t flip on them.

“Agree on that. But we can’t really go up without extracting, either.”

His gaze is dark – of course it is, there’s only one tiny lamp between them, barely enough to draw even more shadows on them, let alone doing anything more. But it’s also enough that EJ looks – looks so much.

Like a million years ago, in the flat, when he’d asked him about dreaming with him, when they’d been so close, back when it’d seemed as if he might get away with getting it all out. Like Nate’s going to crash and burn, like he’ll tell him, in the cover of darkness and night and a dream they’re two levels deep in: reality far away.

So he takes a deep breath.

“Another level.”

It’s the only way he can see them proceed at all: this dream is too messy to risk it. They haven’t found Landeskog’s safe and the fighting and his – well, feelings have warped Nate’s design: he’d designed the centre as the dream’s focus, to draw Landeskog in, to remember home and fill the empty shells of houses with his home. Home – and a safe, to hide the secret.

But with the barricades and all the noise and fire and fighting, there’s no real safety to be found here. Maybe nowhere in the level.

Unless with EJ, perhaps, but Nate’s not going to dwell on that for much longer.

Checking the dream level to make sure that Landeskog hadn’t hid his secrets somewhere despite his estimations would take too long and be too risky. They’d have to comb through the entire dream, possibly fight projections, and extract. Their chances are too low for Nate’s preference.

“I’m shit at dreams.”, EJ says, and his voice is tinged with bitter laughter.

“EJ”, he just says.

Convincing EJ is absolutely useless: no argument in the world could turn him around if he has an opinion on something, Nate knows. He could beg. Has begged. But he doesn’t want to, not again. So he says no more, just puts his hand on EJ’s shoulder.

In the darkness, it’s a surprisingly intimate gesture, the way his hand curves around EJ’s shoulder, warm skin only a thin layer away, seeping through the fabric. EJ’s strong and broad and tall and good enough to take on the whole world, but this, right here, feels fragile. Thin skin, huge and gentle heart and Nate’s hand feels too heavy and too large on his shoulders, like leaving bruises without meaning to.

“Nate.”

EJ turns, until he’s completely looking at Nate. Even in the tiny lamp light, Nate can see the pain in EJ’s face. Pain over something Nate does not know yet wishes he could undo, could get rid of, all so he’ll never have to see him look like this, ever again. Whatever his words meant, he wants to know so he can never speak of it again, if only it means that EJ won’t look like this ever again.

“Nate, please don’t ask this of me.” EJ – he begs.

If it was possible for it to do so, Nate’s heart breaks even further. Because he wants to give EJ this. If it is so important to him, he’ll give it to him in a heartbeat, and do so gladly: he never wanted EJ to be this hurt. He just wants him to be happy. That’s all he’s ever wanted to be and while Nate is selfish – and he knows he is -, he’ll put EJ first, if the decision boils down to it.

Except this time, he can’t. No matter how much he wants, he literally _cannot_ give him this. EJ’s the only one of them both who can dream the third level, because Nate’s bound by this level.

“I’m sorry.”, he whispers.

Because he can’t give EJ this. Unless they kick back to reality and re-try again completely anew, there’s no opportunity. Not with how their two levels so far have already gone to shit so much there’s no chance for them here. They don’t have a plan b or other designs lying around. There’s no magical idea Nate can whisk out of thin air, no step Nate would’ve had to take differently, at neither level: it’s all gone wrong, and they can’t even backtrack. Only forwards, and hoping it will be enough.

And hurting EJ along the way, _god_.

“I’m so sorry.”, he repeats. No words can fully express how much.

It makes EJ’s crying so much worse to bear, because EJ’s doing so silently. Just sits there, face buried in his hands, and cries, body shaking mutely with it.

If Nate’s thought it’s been bad – this is so much worse, god, his heart feels raw, scraped bloody inside his chest. He feels so utterly helpless: EJ hasn’t explained, but whatever it is, it must hurt him deeply to go under further. And hadn’t he asked not to accompany them? But here Nate is, dragging him the furthest from all of them, even deeper into the rabbit hole.

Closer to limbo, too. It’s a risk for the third level, of course, and EJ will have to bear it alone. Won’t get another try: if he fails or leaves Landeskog, that’s it. That would be the end of it all.

“EJ, I’m so sorry.”

It’s all he can say, again and again, but it won’t ever be enough.

His hand slips around EJ, pulling him into a hug, and EJ wraps his arms around him, like iron bands, curling into Nate as much as he can. As if he’d hide away from the world and Nate wants nothing more than to give him this. So he does. Hugs him and hopes it makes things at least not much worse for EJ.

*

They can’t run forever, JT had known, but it still is a slap to his face to meet the end of it: they’re surrounded by a sheer armada, visible even through the fog and rain.

No more running for them.

Josty’s really pale when JT turns around to him. He must’ve realized, too.

“This would be a _really_ good moment for them to turn around and kick awake.”, he says.

“Yeah.”, is all JT has to offer.

He grabs Josty’s hand, returning the hold with just as much force, looking frozenly at the boats and all the projections drawing closer.

*

Landeskog’s at the biggest tent, and thankfully, it is dark already, no lamp shining.

Nate slips in after EJ, holding the PASIV. They have, at most, two hours, before someone will probably ask for something. Carefully, Nate tries not to jinx things even further by thinking of what it would take for someone to ask for Landeskog. If his own subconscious pulls a stunt right now, it might wake the barricade, and, as such Landeskog would wake too.

They both know how dangerous this is.

Landeskog’s asleep, in a double bed, turned towards the empty half of it, arms stretched out. As if missing someone.

But they don’t have time to commiserate, really. Nate puts down the PASIV and clicks on a tiny lamp, turning it so that it only illuminates the PASIV and not the tent. They don’t need to draw attention, really.

EJ sits down on the bed, leaning against the head of the bed, next to Landeskog’s stretched out arms. It’s too dark to make out his facial expression, and after the hug and EJ’s crying, Nate doesn’t want to, still eaten alive with guilt for what he is forcing EJ into. He still feels scraped raw, his emotions all over the place, a mess.

As EJ inserts the needle, Nate prepares Landeskog. Doesn’t even move him, just slips in the needle.

“Good luck.”, he whispers, all he allows himself to say, and not a single breath of what he wants to say. Things like: _I love you_ , or _I wish I could go in your place and save you the pain_.

He presses the plunger.

*

The sweet smell of ice cream has him blink his eyes open, and for one, blissful moment he doesn’t know where he is – he’s had dreams like this, good but hazy dreams, fragments – but then he remembers. The job. Landeskog. And then it all falls back into place.

Fuck, _Nate_.

He sits up, looking around: it’s a little, cozy ice cream parlour, and he’s in one of its booths, surrounded by the calm lull of people chattering. It looks very much like a repurposed American diner, except with a lot of ice cream paraphernalia.

He’s been in a lot of similar places like this, but never –

Someone slips into the booth opposite of him.

“So they didn’t have dark chocolate, but they did have cherry, so I bought that, hope that’s okay with you?”, Nate asks and shoves a gigantic sundae in front of him. It’s dripping cherries and chocolate shavings, and there are at least four scoops of ice cream.

It’s nothing like he’d ever gotten for himself, but _everything_ he’s dreamt of for a date. Ha, dreamt. Quite literally, isn’t he? His subconscious is not subtle at all. Never has been. He had known what would await him here.

A stark reminder why he doesn’t dream. – Unless of course if it’s Nate asking him to.

And this Nate lowers his spoon, and when EJ looks up, there’s some whipped cream on his lower lip.

“Hey. Are you okay?”, he asks, voice tinged with worry.

“Daydream.”, EJ chokes out, wobbly smile on his lips, and tries to look as normal as he can.

Probably failing to do so, going by how Nate takes his hand, thumb gently rubbing circles over his skin. The smile on his lips is warm and gentle as he holds his hand. Fuck, EJ wants, wants it so much, with a force that _hurts_ -and yet it’s all just a dream.

“I can distract you, if you want.”

Nate’s smile is something new, something EJ’s never seen in reality: slightly wicked, and it looks good on him,too. EJ wants to kiss it off his lips, wants to lick into his mouth until the grin is all his, and kiss him until they’re both breathless and the sundae’s left to melt, all forgotten.

“It’s okay.”, he says, and lifts Nate’s hand, kissing the palm.

He won’t be able to keep any of this, except maybe as a painful reminder as soon as he’s awake again. So he allows to indulge himself. This is the gentlest he’s ever allowed himself to be – and only in dreams, where it won’t matter that he’s so terribly in love with a friend he’s had for years now, unable to ever risk anything. Not Nate.

“Hey. EJ.”, Nate leans over the table, and the grin from before is wiped off his face, replaced by concern.

“Are you sure? I can get you napkins, if you want.”, and Nate wipes at his cheek.

\- shit, yeah, he’s crying again. Is it his time to cry in Nate’s presence like a child? Fuck. – At least this time, the real Nate won’t know of it. Small mercy.

He doesn’t even have tissues at him, he realizes, checking his pockets, so he nods at Nate, who slips out of the booth.

As soon as he’s left, someone else sits down at his place, and before EJ can disagree or say something – the words die on his lips.

Because it is Landeskog, sitting opposite of him. He’s wearing a mint coloured shit, sunglasses clipped on the hem.

He freezes, the comfortable weight of a gun settling down across his lap. Just a precaution, after all these levels. But the patrons – projections stay calm so far, so he keeps the gun out of Landeskog’s view. But the guy simply whips out a spoon and starts on the sundae, as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening.

“So this is a dream.”, he says, mouth full with cherries and whipped cream, almost conversationally.

The projections don’t even twitch – no one looks at him, at them, instead they just keep chattering as if it’s just an ice cream shop like any other.

  
Carefully, EJ nods. He’s not sure which angle to play here, exactly. Landeskog’s behaviour is a whiplash after the two levels of him running them down, attacking them. And anything he will say to Landeskog may cause him to give himself an idea, incepting himself. Would be, ha, the cherry on top of this butchered job.

That, and they’re one mistake away from limbo, he isn’t going to risk anything here.

But Landeskog just keeps eating the sundae like it’s his, and Nate hasn’t returned so far. EJ leans back, to look at him.

“He’s busy.”, Landeskog says, and now that he’s said it, EJ’s can see them too: Nate is talking to a curly-haired guy EJ can immediately identify: Tyson! Tyson Barrie, fuck, he’s worked with him, before he went AWOL, dropping out of business from one day to the next, dropping phone numbers and contacts like he’d been burnt, instead turning up at EJ’s porch, crying and drunk to the high heavens –

Two years ago. That had been two years ago.

Jesus _Christ_ –

No way. No _fucking_ way.

He’d know about this. _Nate_ would know about this -

Landeskog is staring at him, as if waiting for something. What, is he expecting EJ to spill some beans here? As if.

At least he’s not eating the sundae anymore. But his spoon is still half-raised, as if prepared to stab EJ with it, if he really puts his mind to it. Which he might, after the past two levels, EJ wouldn’t put it behind him.

“You know him.”, Landeskog states, before taking another scoop of whipped cream and ice cream. It’s not a question, so he’s rather sure. EJ nods. It’s all he offers. But it’s apparently enough.

“I didn’t think you were like me, too.”, Landeskog finally continues, chewing slowing down.

Of course, EJ could play stupid, could act as if nothing happened – because it isn’t, there’s nothing between Nate and him, nothing worth mentioning. His feelings don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. There’s nothing to talk about, after all.

But the way Landeskog’s looking towards the counter from the corner of his eyes, like he can’t help it, like he’s drawn to Tyson like metal towards a magnet – well, what can EJ say, he understands completely, he shares the feeling. He feels the same with Nate, drawn to him just the same way, and his dreams are the only place he can have him, the only place that he’s allowed to show his feelings so wide open instead of hiding them away, folding them up inside himself until he’s bursting at the seams with it –

“Dreams are no good place to keep love.”, he finally says, cutting off his thoughts - and Landeskog stills.

Turns to look at Tyson, who’s talking to Nate like EJ’s seen the two of them talk in reality quite often, too. They’re laughing together as Tyson’s gestures wildly, Nate drinking from a cup and listening animatedly. They’re in their little bubble, and it makes EJ’s heart clench, because this, too, is home. He’s known Tyson to be like this, once, so bubbling with joy – it’s been a long time since he’d seen him this way. He hadn’t even noticed it had slipped from Tyson, like water trickling from a cracked glass. He hadn’t known – they’re friends, but by far not as close.

“But it’s the only place I’m allowed to.”

Landeskog’s voice is small, and full of pain and hurt and two years of a broken heart ground to dust. He’s staring at Tyson like a man dying of thirst, like darkness at the stars, like it’s all he wants – and full well knows he can only have in his dreams. Literally.

He looks like EJ has caught himself to look at Nate, and it aches, deep inside him, that someone else would look like this. Would share the same feelings, feelings that hurt and ached with every breath, every day, no end in view.

“Believe me, it won’t -.”, he squeezes out, but Landeskog interrupts him.

“How can you say it? You can get to see him whenever you want, you just –“, he waves around his hands, almost knocking over the sundae, “- do your – thing! And then there he is. I don’t even have that much.”

Tyson and Nate are looking over, visibly concerned, so EJ just lightly shakes his head and so they resume talking. Maybe it’s even good they’re away, visible yet not close: otherwise EJ might not be concentrating on Landeskog at all. If Nate was close, well. It’d be even more distracting than it already is, with him being only a few steps away and knowing that here, he could kiss him, do it and have it returned, to be wanted by Nate.

“And do you think I’d ever wake up if I got a taste of it? Or would stay awake, once I knew how it can be?”

Because that’s the ugly, ugly truth EJ will not admit: if he starts dreaming, whenever he does go under, it all ends up like this: Nate, so close, so terribly close and loving him and he knows, EJ knows without a doubt: if he returns it, if he does get a taste of it, he won’t wake up again. Not to a reality in which Nate is only ever going to be a friend at best and so much less at worst. And he’d lose himself happily in limbo if it would mean this.

He hasn’t told anyone this – fuck, he hasn’t even admitted it to himself, either! He’d just busied himself by avoiding the temptation altogether: if he doesn’t even start dreaming, he won’t have to say no. His natural dreams only let him remember fleeting fragments of it all, enough that he’d wake up again.

But this, oh, this is so much worse. He wouldn’t do it. Unless…well, unless. Unless Nate asks. About a job, about dreaming, about going to the deepest level, about going alone.

“Oh.”, is all Landeskog says, and then: “I didn’t know.”

EJ grimaces something that might look enough like a smile, but if he’s honest, he doesn’t care, either way. His eyes feel hot, so he grabs his spoon and digs into the sundae on his side. The ice cream is still cold and solid and the cherries are rich in flavour and juice.

*

There’s a murmur outside the tent, Nate can’t place it. The barricade isn’t quite waking up, not yet, but it is stirring. Slowly.

He dreams up a gun – a silencer would be useless, there are too many people too close and they’d hear him either way -, and covers EJ with a blanket so it just looks like he fell asleep in a very weird position while reading something. The PASIV gets shoved aside, until it’s half under the bed, and Nate slips in the gap between bed and table – they won’t ever hope to pass a throughout search, but it might fool anyone who’ll take a brief gaze into the tent.

Whatever’s going on, EJ has to hurry.

*

The boats are drawing closer and closer. Why they haven’t started shooting yet, JT’s got no idea. But there are too many to count, and even more weapons trained at them.

Their hands don’t let go of each other, grabbing each other. They won’t have to do this alone.

Josty’s hand in his is clammy and cold.

*

He counts the minutes in the darkness of night. It’s pitch black, but through a thin strip between tent linen and floor, he can see fire shine of torches. Not much longer, then. He wills EJ to hurry.

*

“I don’t want to wake up.”

EJ sighs. Between them, they’ve reduced the sundae that has, until the end, refused to melt.

“You’ll have to.”, he says, but it’s hollow.

Of course, he knows they must wake up. To a world where they’re not loved by who they want to be loved – it’s daunting and lonely, and that’s exactly why he refuses to dream. He hates being reminded of what reality lacks, even beyond all fantastics dreamspace could offer. No mind trick compared to Nate in his arms, looking at him like he just caught a star from the skies, kissing EJ like it’s the best thing he’s ever done.

“Is he happy?”

It’s a non-sequitur, so it takes EJ a moment to place it. And puts him in a tough spot, because either way, it is a risk. He doesn’t even know half the facts and he doesn’t know Tyson’s opinion: he hasn’t been Tyson’s best friend to listen to it while it happened. That had been Nate, just as it has been – still is – Nate who’s Tyson’s best friend, and their friendship is too tight, not allowing for any betrayal. EJ hasn’t heard anything – fuck, he hadn’t even known it had been Landeskog!

So he can’t say much because he simply doesn’t know what happened – that, and he also doesn’t want to meddle in Tyson’s things. He still isn’t quite sure what to do about Landeskog and all of this, the aggressive subconscious yet the sitting in the same boat.

It’s a tough spot to be in, for sure, so in the end, he decides to go with the safest bet.

“He’s been happier, two and half years ago.”

“Really?”, Landeskog asks, and his eyes are wet and shiny with tears he refuses to let fall.

“But do you want to go there? Or focus on your job?”

Landeskog looks at Tyson, now busy eating ice cream as well, just as Nate talks about something. Nate’s wearing one of EJ’s shirts, he realizes suddenly, the one shirt he’d given him after their first job had ended with them running through a sleet storm, drenched and frozen to the bones, and EJ’s hotel had been closer so they’d gone and – and EJ had lent him clothes, and the shirt had been missing ever since.

“I want it both. If I can have it, I want it both.”

“It’s been two years.”, EJ reminds him, gently.

Nate leans against the counter still, and it’s all to easy to remember it’s been more than twice as long for him, loving Nate. Such a long time, and it never really stopped. Didn’t even ease up at all. Years upon years of loving someone. How would it have felt if he’d been dating Nate for roughly half that time? Having what he wants and have it ripped away? Surely its own kind of torture.

“I’ve never really stopped loving him. Two years and I never stopped. I tried.”, Landeskog says, hiccuping a laugh, but it’s wet with tears, “I tried so hard, I left Denver, I even started at mom’s company, and nothing helped, nothing, _I still love him_.”, and Landeskog crumbles, burying his face in his hands, crying.

“You won’t stop loving him either.”, EJ says, as gently as he can, because there’s no way to make this worse, to claw Landeskog’s wound open further. This is as bad as it can be already, anways.

“I’ve tried it, too. You just stay in love.”, and if his voice is wet, too, no one will know.

*

They’re crying. Both of them, Nate notices: Landeskog’s lying there, unconscious, and EJ’s slumped over, just as unconscious, tears dripping down their faces.

But why? God, what is happening?

If he could, he’d go under too and fix it, fix it all, he never wanted EJ to be in this pain, he just wants him to be happy. Once this is over, he won’t ever ask this of him ever again.

God, when will this stop? Surely his heart cannot ache more.

*

“We need to tell them.”, Landeskog says, wiping his tears off resolutely.

Before EJ can answer, Tyson and Nate are there, both visibly worried.

“Are you okay? What happened?”, Tyson asks, cupping Landeskog’s face.

“I need to tell you.”, is all Landeskog says, looking at Tyson like it hurts with how much he loves him.

Nate hasn’t said anything, but his hands are on EJ’s shoulders, as if to anchor him. His thumb is brushing over the bare skin of EJ’s clavicle and EJ turns his head slightly, until it, too, is cupped and Nate kisses him gently, making his lips tingle. He closes his eyes.

This is the thing he’s been wanting for years, like nothing else, and now he has felt it – not the real thing. But it’s close enough. Limbo would be so quick to get to: he still has his gun. He could kick Landeskog awake, and he could trick himself, for sure. A lifetime of happiness that would be as close to the real thing as he’d ever get.

He can’t, of course. Nate needs to know what he’s learnt.

“No, I need to tell the real you.”

“I _am_ real!”, Tyson squawks.

“But not the real Tyson. You’re what I dream you to be, because I love you but can’t have you.”, Landeskog says, much too aware of it all. Why is he so confident and so – dealing well with it all, when EJ, as the actual professional, has been barely dealing with any of it?!

“Why does he get to have it all but you don’t?”, Tyson jabs at EJ, who wisely keeps silent.

This is not about him – he’s made as much peace with his demons as he can. This is about Landeskog coming to a closure, after all that has happened. EJ has his answer, the one thing they came here for and after this theft, Landeskog deserves this.

“Because we’re both scared.”

EJ bites the inside of his cheek. Yeah, no lie at all. He is terrified to the bones. Nate gently knocks their knees together, and kisses him again, this time on the forehead. He looks up at him, and like a million times before, he wishes this was real, that it was the real Nate, real kisses.

“But he gets to have it, he’s just chickening out!”, Tyson says and, well, yeah.

EJ’s a massive chicken when it gets to even thinking about telling Nate of his feelings. The words always clump together, too big and heavy to get out, even – even back in Stockholm. A lifetime ago, it feels like, but Nate had been so close – and even then, he hadn’t been able to get it out. Brave as he can be with literally everything else – but not this. He’d take anything. Has taken anything. But looking at Nate and confessing? It terrifies him like even the worst fucked up dreams cannot.

“You tell him if I tell him.”, Landeskog suddenly addresses him, cutting through his thoughts.

His piercing blue gaze allows almost no disagreement. EJ wants to struggle, the protest already on his lips.

“I think it would be a good idea, EJ.”, Nate says, voice quiet, gentle.

EJ whips around.

There’s a tiny smile on Nate’s lips as he cups EJ’s face, like he’s holding something precious.

“Tell the real me. Get closure. I’ll be waiting for you anyways, no matter how it goes.”

There are a million ways this could go wrong and barely a handful where it won’t, EJ wants to say, there is no way he will get this lucky. None at all. Not in reality.

“EJ, in your dreams I’ll always love you.”

And it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. It feels like it will never stop hurting.

The Nate he has dreamt up loves him – but it’s just a dream, and he is supposed to risk it for a shot in reality. He looks at Nate, beautiful, bright, Nate and – nods, swallowing around the lump in his throat. Alright. But oh, will it ever stop aching.

“We’ll both tell them.”, Landeskog says, holding out his hand.

It’s a curse. And a promise.

Most likely Landeskog will not remember anything. Maybe Landeskog will only remember the promise, or just him. Usually dreams did not leave much for crystal-clear memories, especially from three levels down.

Still. EJ grabs the hand and shakes on it. It’s a deal.

As if on cue, both Nate and Tyson disappear – they were just projections, after all, but still, they’re gone. They’re _gone_. 

– In fact, the ice cream parlour is empty.

“Wake us up.”, Landeskog orders, face serious. He looks as terrified as EJ feels, but just as determined.

EJ lifts his gun.

Deep breath.

Gunshots.

*

The camp has woken completely, clamouring awake in an instant. It’s worse than – yesterday? A few hours ago? The projections sound agitated, much more than they were with Josty.

Before Nate can give EJ and Landeskog the countdown for a kick – let this job be cursed once and for all! -, they both startle awake.

EJ’s looking at him like he saw a ghost – Nate’ll have to ask him about it, as soon as they’re back in reality, for sure. What worries him much more right now is how aware Landeskog is. He shouldn’t be, not at this stage of the dream.

But he looks at Nate as if he knows him. It makes unease pool in his belly, if he’s honest.

“Let’s go.”, EJ tells him, “Nate.”, and his voice curls around Nate’s name like it’s important, like it’s not just a name. Like it means something more beyond -

“Shit, what –“, Landeskog startles, as the tent flap is ripped open and the tent is flooded with torch light. The projections have arrived, and their faces are a grimace of anguish, angry tension written across their bodies. They have not calmed down at all. And this time, they stare at all three of them as if they’d rather kill them with their bare hands than let any of them walk as much as a single step.

“Go, go, _go_!”, EJ curses, grabbing Nate’s hand with the gun.

Nate’s aim is excellent: before the projections can drag them out, he’s kicked them all out of the dream.

*

There’s cursing from below.

JT _really_ wants to look, but that would require taking his eyes away from the boats surrounding them, and he’d really rather not. Get shot and all. And seeing as that’s the very same fate that’ll await them if they so much as twitch, he’s staying as still.

But Josty’s squeezing his hand just the tiniest bit, so he’s probably heard it too.

Nate’s the first he can see, from the corner of his eyes, with EJ looming right behind him, and a third figure behind that. Fuck, Landeskog’s awake too? Are they going to get shot?

But the projections don’t, and the three of them stay out of their view, in the dusk of the ship’s belly. and Landeskog right behind him. Wise men, the three of them. If only Josty and him had the same luck.

He dares pulling up an eyebrow. No shooting. But the boats come closer still.

Nate shrugs at them, helplessly, and, fuck. JT closes his eyes. They’re fucked, then, and all of it for nothing, fuck. Fuck! All of it and they got nothing, fuck, they’ll have to re-try, and what then? The next time, Landeskog won’t be as nice, and he’ll probably have a massive subconscious security to boot – no one got extracted twice without improving their subconscious. Nor will they manage to catch him as easily –

“It’s done!”, EJ shouts out –

And thankfully promptly shoots them afterwards, so JT crumples to the ground before he can think any more about the dreams, before he can worry about Josty. He’s kicked out of the dream before the projections’ hail of bullets hit him.

Around them, the dream starts crumbling, the archipelago exploding like volcanoes, water crashing into the boats, rocking them so harshly they almost fall over. Rocks and icy water thunder down, pelting them with ice-sharp debris.

Landeskog gets almost knocked into the wall at an angle to drop him out, so EJ catches him, just barely. Their boat is rocking wildly, not yet capsized, but it will only be a matter of seconds at most as the waves crash into the boat, growing into looming walls of ice.

“Nate!”, he shouts over the water, and swallows a mouthful of salt water for it.

Nate has wedged himself into the doorframe, and nods at him. There’s a gun in his hand.

One level up they’ll be back in reality.

Landeskog slightly jams his elbow into EJ’s side – could be a coincidence born from the forces the boat is subjected to, but EJ knows it isn’t.

“You promised.”, he hisses, and EJ nods, because he has – and Landeskog hasn’t forgotten.

Nate shoots them awake before the collapsing dream can.

*

Gabriel blinks his eyes open, mind still caught in the wisps of dreams already half-forgotten. Snippets of things passing too quickly for him to latch on.

He…where is he? He’d been…huh. Work, maybe? Actually, he isn’t sure. Had he been at work? Is he still in Stockholm? It doesn’t smell like his Stockholm flat: wood, sap, water – none of it is what it smells like there. Nor does it feel like – the flat, really. It feels different, like a life closed-off, like his own place, its own little nook of the world…

He blinks awake, yawning. Rolling to one side, he takes in where he is – and recognizes it almost immediately, despite how unmoored and off he feels: it’s his summer house.

But how did he get here?

He doesn’t remember getting here, let alone lying down on the couch or pulling a blanket over him. The sun’s still shining, albeit hanging low: he wouldn’t take a nap on the couch when it’s like this. He’d sleep outside, for sure, enjoying the summer air. And yes, he had thought of coming here, staying here, enjoying a few days off.

But when had that happened? How much time has passed? How long did he sleep? It feels like one of these eternal naps, when waking up felt like waking up after a century, not just a few hours. And this, this feels so much worse.

His inner clock says much more has happened since then. A bit like the clocks he’d kept, once, one showing Denver time and one Stockholm time and –

Tyson.

Him. Something about him. He can’t remember, but it’s something with him, something about him. It still aches, like it has been for two years, like it won’t ever stop aching. Except…it’s a gentler kind of ache, less sharp and splintery than it had been for so long.

He sits up, wiping his face. The chairs are turned towards the couch. Weird, it almost looks as if someone sat in them, the way there’s an indent there and the pillows are wrinkled, too. But that can’t be: he hasn’t had visitors for ages now, no one beyond his family. And Bea had called him, she’d come over soon. In the evening, she’d said. She’d knock soon, probably. How much time does he have until then?

Yawning, he walks into the kitchen: maybe a cup of coffee is going to wake him up properly again. If he’s napped this long, he can forget falling asleep at night, anyways.

The kitchen’s empty.

Or, well, not quite empty: he always has preserves at his summer house, all the berries and fruit and vegetables he harvests during summer. And that’s all there is at the moment. No bags full of groceries, no baskets with food. Same with the freezer, he realizes upon checking it: it’s empty.

But that can’t be, he always brings food with him here, because he can’t be assed to go back and buy some during his holidays, so he always buys more than enough. If it’s too much, he could always leave it here, either pickled or deep-frozen. So he won’t starve right now, but still, it really does not add up.

And then he sees the glass of cherries right in the middle of the table, a long spoon next to it.

Furrowing his brow, he carefully steps closer – almost expecting the preserve glass to blow up, anything, because this all feels so off, so wrong, something is not normal here – he doesn’t just leave glasses of random stuff, let alone a glass of cherries, of all things, on the middle of his table.

There’s a folded-up paper shoved under the preserves: one of the blocks he keeps pinned to the fridge, to write shopping lists without forgetting things, or have paper at hand in case of someone calling.

But he hadn’t been here yet for someone to call, nor had he written a grocery list.

The handwriting isn’t his, either.

_Cinnamon buns_

_Cinnamon_

_Cardamom_

_Dough (Yeast)_

Weird, he can almost smell it, too, like a memory. Which it is, of course: cinnamon buns are a food he’s eaten quite often already so why – _(gunshots, screaming, and he needs to catch them)(YeahforNateDoggplease)(Tyson)_

_Sky scrapers_

_Barricade_

_Colorado, Denver_

His fingers start to shake. For so long he has been able to avoid it – this, him, and all it entailed, everything connected to it: Stockholm is so, so far away from – _(smoke, revolution, fight, why can’t they let go)(Himynameistysonandyours)(Tyson)_

_Cherries, whipped cream, vanilla ice cr_

The word’s unfinished, but Gabriel knows it will read ‘vanilla ice cream’ – the sundae –

_Dreams are no good place to keep love._

_He’s been happier, two and half years ago._

_You won’t stop loving him either._

_We’ll both tell them_

_I need to tell you_

Dear god –

Gabriel sinks to the floor, crying, before he even quite understands why – he remembers, he remembers, oh, _he remembers._

The dreams – the men. How it all was related to Tyson – had they come to drag it all back up? To reopen the old wounds, to make it hurt again, after all this time?

Except – the guy. The one. From the – last one, god, Gabriel doesn’t even remember how many dreams there had been, just that it had always been the same men in them, four of them. Red hair, beard, boat. Curls, himynameistysonandyours, and of course one would be called Tyson, of course. Broad, world on his shoulders, lisp, serious, yeahfornatedoggplease – Gabriel remembers him, not just from the dreams. Hadn’t there been pictures of – Tyson, his Tyson, with the guy? He’s not sure. God, it’s been years, and he’d been so throughout in shoving it all away and getting rid of every single trace of Tyson in his life. Up and including moving back to Stockholm, the only place that had always been his, without Tyson.

\- And the last guy. The one who’d felt like an echo of Gabriel’s darkest pits, the one where the longing had congealed into something sharp, something howling in pain and longing and missing – and to see this, all of it, on someone else’s face – looking at another one like Gabriel knew he looked at Tyson and had _never really stopped_ –

His sister finds him, later, still crying.

*

_Ding-dong_ –

With a sigh, Tyson puts the knife and his bowl of cherries down. Still too much to do, he really should’ve borrowed the machine-thingy to de-pit the cherries faster.

Oh, hopefully it won’t be long, whoever it is – probably the mail man, with stuff for his neighbours: for some reason they always mail-ordered things knowing full well they wouldn’t be home to receive them –

Well, he’ll have to hurry to finish cutting up the cherries, this is really not ideal, so whoever it is, they better be –

\- oh fuck no.

He almost slams the door shut again, because this. This – it’s –

It’s the past violently saying Hello again – shit, he’s thought he’s been over this, except he really isn’t, and it all rushes back in, with a force that almost knocks him off his feet.

“Hi.”, Gabe says, a half-smile tugging at his lips and it’s almost like it had been, back then. Before it all went to shit. Fuck!

Fuck!

Now Tyson _does_ slam the door shut, right in Gabriel’s face. It’s been two years. Two fucking years, he’s been over this – shit, he hasn’t even visited a dream den, not even once, and yes, he is quite proud of it, too. God, he’s missed Gabe, so much, but he hasn’t forgotten how the break-up had gone.

“Tyson?” – it’s muffled through the wood of the door, but it is Gabe, unmistakably. Tyson would recognize that voice anywhere.

“No!”, he shouts, as if it will all go away if he is only resolute enough. Maybe some shouting will do the trick.

“Tyson!”, and now some knocking.

It all feels so real, as if it is true and really happening. But it can’t. They’ve broken up, two years ago, and Gabe had sworn. Had promised, voice angry and snapping: _God, if I never come back, it will be too soon!_ – And then he had gone and not come back, disappearing somewhere far, far away.

So there is no reason Gabe would be here, back in Tyson’s life. But there is one possible explanation for this –

With wobbly legs, he stumbles to the living room, rifling through his shelf, pulling out books, dropping them – who cares, who the fuck cares – his fingers shake like leaves as he snaps open the little box.

There it is: the puck from his last match as an active player, the one he’d been the game winner, the last time he’d ever played hockey before he had decided to focus more on his school instead on betting on becoming a hockey player.

No one knows he has this puck – shit, he hadn’t even told his sister about it – hadn’t told Gabe, either, and at the rink no one had noticed. He’s the only one who knows.

The puck is scruffy, used, but it is just that: a puck. Pitch black and smooth – in reality. In his dreams it’s –

Fuck, he wants the puck to stay as it is, as he put it in the box in reality – but the thought that it might be real, that Gabe might be here, with him, in reality, is just as scary. Just because he remembers how he got here – cherry pie baking and all – does not have to mean a thing. It does not. Does it?

He almost drops the box, fingers unable to get the puck out immediately –

It is shiny and black. On this side. So he flips it around and –

Black, too. It is his puck. Same welts and all, it is the puck.

This is reality. It is real. Gabe is here. God, Gabe is here – here, in Denver, here, in Tyson’s life!

He breathes out, shakily, and puts the puck away again, in the box and behind some books on his shelf. Rather haphazardly, but who cares: it’s covered. He’ll tidy up the rest of the books later, because right now, well.

Gabe.

He returns to the door – still a knocking sounding from it.

Oh, god. Taking a deep breath, he wipes his clammy hands on his apron. Nothing for it, he’s got to face the music.

Gabe is still there, hand stilling midway between them, as if ready to knock again. Tyson’s traced these knuckles with his fingers, has held these hands in his, knew them so well – they were together for less than their distance apart, but it has always been the best time of his life.

“Oh.”, Gabe breathes out.

Tyson almost doesn’t dare looking up – but he makes himself, forces himself to look up, into Gabe’s face, and he wants to cry – again, as if there is nothing more left to do except cry and cry and cry and never stop.

Because it is Gabriel. It really is.

He looks no different than two years ago, exactly as Tyson remembered – and yet different in a million ways Tyson wants to map out. A miracle at his doorstep.

“Hi.”, he breathes out.

“Hey.”, Gabriel says, just as breathlessly.

His eyes are still so terribly blue and sparkling and he is so, so handsome it hurts – except there’s also exhaustion etched into his face, bone-deep in a way Tyson’s felt too, and he wants to hug him. Just wrap his arms around this man and never lets go, and fuck, he’d been so utterly stupid two years ago – no, in fact the whole two years, starting from that fight – starting from all the fights, for sure: how could he ever let Gabe go? Without fighting tooth and nail to keep him – them, as a couple?

“I missed you.”, Gabriel blurts out, and immediately flushes.

And it hasn’t changed: he blushes blotchily, red blooming in his face, making him look like he’d gotten caught with his hand still in the cookie jar. It’s still like it has been over two years ago. Such a stupid thing, but it makes Tyson tear up.

“Yeah.”, he says and nods, mouth curling into an almost painful smile, because yeah, he – he gets it. Feels it too. His eyes start burning.

The moment of silence drags on, until it’s overstretched, brittle, but Tyson just – he can’t, okay? Gabe is here, and this all feels so delicate, as if one wrong breath can destroy it – will destroy it, in fact. And then Gabe’s going to fuck off again, except this time, he probably won’t come back, and Tyson’s greedy. He’s grown to be. He wants Gabe, has never really stopped, not even after the ugly break-up.

“Can I come in?”, Gabe asks, and – he even looks nervous, too. As if he’s not sure about Tyson’s response.

Ha, as if. Gabe’s always so sure and he always gets what he wants, when he wants it. This time, too.

Tyson moves aside, and Gabe steps in, so Tyson closes the door behind him.

“Yeah, it’s –“, is as far as he comes, voice trailing off, because they crash into each other as he’s too close to Gabe and Gabe doesn’t step away and he looks into Gabe’s face, so terribly close and –

And in the end it doesn’t quite matter who of them bridges the distance: they move towards another and kiss and kiss and kiss -

It is an eternity and yet almost no time at all – and it’s a good thing he has checked his totem, because he wouldn’t believe it otherwise – and yet it is over much too soon. Gabe doesn’t move away a lot, though, face so close Tyson can’t even look into his eyes without going cross-eyed.

“I missed you, Tyson.”, Gabe says, again, but this time, his voice is quiet and shaky and – wet?

Tyson wants to crack a joke, drag this whole situation onto safer ground, somewhere that doesn’t feel like digging his heart out from his ribs with his bare hands – except. That had been what has put them into his mess…their break-up hadn’t been his fault alone. Gabe has his own flaws, Tyson’s not blind, just in love. With his ex. But he can recognize his own flaws, and the two years had been enough time to think about it. About them. Why it fell apart despite him being so sure that this is it, Gabe is it, ring-wearing material and all.

“Why now?”, is what he asks, instead.

Safer than spewing out his heart, or taking Gabe back without even a single word more spoken. He would. He knows himself, and if he’d had any questions, the way all his feelings had slammed back into him at the first gaze of Gabe – well, rather telling.

But this time, he’d start right. If it went well, it would be worth it, the honesty, and if it didn’t, it would be the definite end of this weird half-limbo. Ha, limbo!

“I missed you.”, Gabe repeats, as if it’s the only thing he can say, and his face is as cracked open as Tyson feels.

“But why now, it’s been _two years_.”

Gabe takes a deep breath.

“So, it happened in Stockholm –“, Gabe starts, and the way he says it has something in Tyson’s chest go very, very still.

“I think I still have some coffee.”, he says, and goes to the kitchen. Gabe follows him, mutely.

It’s so strange to have him here again, after this time. It feels like yesterday, in a way, because Gabe so far didn’t stop being close to his heart – and at the same time, Tyson is relieved it hasn’t been yesterday. ‘Back then’ was horrible. They were horrible. Both of them.

He can’t speak for Gabe, but he knows for himself, that at the end, it was not about love, not at all. It had only been about dealing out the pain Gabe made him feel, the shards their relationship – their love! – had turned into, and the pain he felt from knowing how rich and sweet it had been, once. That’s not love, but he’d been buried too deep in it to see it.

Now he can, and it is still bittersweet. His heart is still going mad with it, at having Gabe so close again – without either one tearing into the other.

“What happened in Stockholm?”, he asks, busying himself in dragging out the old coffee machine. The one that required him to mill the coffee beans himself and all.

He doesn’t miss the deep breath Gabe takes, as if to steady himself. And when he starts talking about Stockholm, the coffee grinding is soon forgotten.

*

EJ’s saddling one of the two new horses – the sweet mare he’d found, coal black and dancing nervously in one of the boxes at the horse breeder. What can he say, she is now still very much black as if someone just emptied an ink pot over her, but much less nervous. Although she is only so when he’s around, apparently: he’s the only one allowed to saddle her, ride her, or clean her hooves. So, still nervous.

But she’s still sweet, a real darling, and with time, she’ll lose some of her tension. Not all of it, or at least he doesn’t expect her to. He got her, knowing she’s anxious, so to demand her to stop being so is stupid. Maybe she won’t, and in that case he’ll be happy, but he isn’t counting on it.

Suddenly, she flicks her ears back and whinnies, sharply, so he puts the saddle back to pet her, crooning low nonsense at her to calm her down.

“EJ!”, someone shouts – Nate.

Sounding – not quite panicky, but definitely weird, off, something’s wrong, something is so, so wrong, and EJ curses himself for not bringing his gun. A silly thing, because he hasn’t taken his gun with him to the stables in years, having kept enough of a low profile for his other proclivities never trailing back into this life –

“EJ!”, another shout, Nate calling for him.

EJ doesn’t answer – what if it’s a trap? Slowly, he creeps towards the open barn doors of the stable.

The horse whinnies again, this time quieter and more nervous.

“I know, girl.”, he croons back, and slips into the stables. There won’t be a gun still, but there are much more opportunities to hide. And more thing to use as a weapon.

Outside, there are footsteps.

He grabs one of the big hoof picks from the wall – purely decorative, he’d said, and they _were_ : massive iron, weathered, heavy. Hellishly sharp, too much of a risk for everyday use and less-than-perfectly experienced riders.

They were never just bought as a decoration. Having emergency weaponry on hand is useful in their field of work.

He steps back into the dim light behind the door, where he knew the sunshine from outside and the stables’ shadows created an impossible to make out twilight. He wouldn’t be safe forever, but enough to get a good shot in.

“EJ!”, and Nate storms into the stables, clearly agitated. Shoulders tense.

Outside, it’s quiet, except for some horse whinnying. No further people.

EJ looks through a crack in the wood outside – nothing. Not as far as he can see, and he’d made damn sure to know where the blind spots were.

“Nate!”, he calls out, lowering the hoof pick slightly.

And the fact that Nate’s gaze only takes in the hoof pick without commenting on it says a lot – something’s way off if Nate keeps silent about it. EJ’s never shown him this – decoration. Weapon. Side of him?

“You talked to Landeskog?!”

The world drowns in static noise. EJ counts breaths: two, three, four in, keep, one, two, three out – he’d fed the other horses, after which he’d led the newest one out to saddle her, for a short tour around, to ride her for a bit longer after the last, too short trip –

Reality, then? Probably.

“I did.”, he says. No use in dallying around. Nate had sounded as if he was sure already but wanted EJ to disagree, to prove him wrong.

“ _Why_.”, Nate hisses.

He looks so out of place here, in the middle of one of EJ’s stables, and EJ _wants_. He wants him, and right in this second, looking at Nate, it hits him in the gut.

It’s entirely the wrong moment, of course, he is aware of that. Nate looks completely confused and angry and a million other things EJ has no chance of ever figuring out, but he wants to. Wants to smooth out Nate’s furrowed brows and hold him close and a million little things and it all burns up and together and melts into this glowing hot ball somewhere under his ribs, burning him –

“It came up.”, he says into the silence.

“It could’ve destroyed –“, Nate starts, before burying his face into his hands, jolting to a halt.

“EJ, Landeskog remembers!”, he starts anew, walking closer.

Almost immediately, EJ drops the hoof pick, not caring about the high noise ringing out. His heart is thundering louder and louder, the closer Nate gets, until it feels as if they’re the only two people in the whole universe –

“He fucking remembers! And I only have two lawyers as a back-up – what if he gets out the big guns –“

“I love you.”, EJ interrupts him gently.

Nate stills, staring at him with wide eyes. Maybe it’s because they’re less than two steps apart – much closer than friends ought to be.

For a second, it’s silent. Utter silence, booming between them, and it drags on and on and on, and EJ feels stupid –

“What?”, Nate asks, quietly, as if almost not getting the words out at all. He licks his lips and – and in this moment, he looks – not quite fragile, but fuck, EJ can see the years between them.

Not just the years they’ve shared, although there’ve been many: they’re Denver’s best and most experienced for a reason. By accident, but for a reason still.

Except Nate’s young. Wunderkind, Crosby’s successor, but still young. Seven or eight years, if EJ remembers correctly. After a certain point that didn’t mean much,– when working dreamspace for long enough, the years blurred together. EJ doesn’t particularly keep track of his age – he has kept his official records and one passport that lists his true age, and that’s fine for him. Everything else has been forged and melded in dreams –

\- except there’s an anchor in reality too, and Nate…

It’s painful how unmoored he looks.

“I mean it.”, EJ stands his ground. His heart is going a mile a second. Regret has not yet set in, but he can feel it looming at the back of his mind. Why isn’t Nate reacting? At all? Why is he so still, as if this is a dream, as if he expects something to crash and burn any second now, waiting for the other shoe to drop –

“Really?”

He looks up, into Nate’s eyes – there’s a sun beam hitting his face just so, illuminating him. The dust motes dancing in the air make him look unreal, somehow, but then, that might be all on EJ.

So he takes a deep breath, and:

“Yes.”, he says, voice as sure as he can make it, dragging up the confidence grown by dozens of jobs dreamside, of jobs going to shit around him, of employers bailing and subconsciouses unleashing nasty surprises. None of it was as terrifying as this. Not even the real danger of limbo is as fear-inducing as this: caught in the adrenaline of a subconscious barrelling down on them, trying its best to kill them, that’s one thing; trying and working and fighting as hard as he can. Standing in front of Nate, no weapon, no subconscious trick up his sleeve, no somnacin mix, no colleague, no level to cloak or support or trick or in any way help him – just him. Standing here, having plunged his hands down his throat to take out his heart and put it in front of Nate. His to do with.

There’s no dream to hide himself in.

Nate must see that, too, because there are a lot of emotions playing out on his face – unusual, because Nate never is the kind of man who’s overly emotional, not like this, all openly, at least. Not this visible, as if cracked wide open, eyes…wet?

“Erik…”, he says, and –

-

And he’s never called EJ that. Ever. Not once, he’s always been EJ, and that’s been it; EJ hadn’t doubted that Nate knew his full name. Nate made sure to dig up details on everyone, even remote, unlikely little morsels of information, it’s what makes him such a great point man. So, Nate had to know.

But subconsciously knowing and actually hearing it are two very, very different things.

He’s standing there, frozen. Helpless, in a way. What is he supposed to do? This feels like the emotional version of getting his nails pulled. He knows, because one dream, the target had been surprisingly rather sadistic –

“Do you mean it?”, Nate asks, one of his hands playing with something –

“No, I always drop random love confessions on all my colleagues –“, he starts, indignantly, but Nate interrupts him.

“That’d suck, because I’m in love with you, too.”

EJ blinks, still confused, because what. Nate is -? He – what? With him? But – what? Nate’s -??

“You can’t just joke about feelings.”, he says, weakly, not even close to the ballpark of the usual kind of snark he can manage.

“Can I kiss you instead?”, Nate asks.

There’s a smile on his – well, face, really. Not just the lips. Nate’s whole face is – well, glowing with happiness? In a way? As if Nate’s genuinely happy. And his shoulders are down, too, body open and relaxed and he looks good – not that he doesn’t do so all the time, but right now, it makes EJ’s heart thunk in a particular way, especially with what Nate just said –

So he just nods, dumbly. 

A moment later, Nate is so close, until their bodies are almost completely touching, EJ can feel the warmth of him from head to toe.

“EJ”, Nate starts, cupping EJ’s face like it’s something precious and oh, oh – oh, this is dangerous.

It is reality, though, not a dream. Not a dream: EJ remembers how he got here, this is reality, it has to. His heart is doing weird things, and he feels flayed wide open, delicate, held like this. He swallows.

“I do love you. This is not a joke.”, Nate says, resolutely, voice serious.

EJ smiles at him, he can’t help it, and then, they must be moving in at the same time, because their noses bump as they try to kiss. They laugh, and somehow, they make it, and when their lips slot together, it’s the sweetest feeling in the world.

Quietly, EJ sighs and wraps his arms around Nate as they kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss.

*

_Gabriel takes a bite out of the huge cinnamon roll he’s managed to snag for himself and grins at the two dream thieves sitting in Tyson’s living room. Well, technically three dream thieves, but Tyson’s back is to him, and Gabriel’s caught the tail end of the rant he’s given to his two friends-slash-colleagues._

_Who are both staring at him as if seeing a ghost, faces pale._

_“Hi!”, he says, holding out his hand, “I’m Gabe Landeskog. But you probably know me already, don’t you?”_

_His grin grows bigger as the two of them visibly squirm under his gaze. Weird how they both look exactly – not quite like he remembers, he can only recall certain stuff from the dream. More the feeling of things than the actual look. And the words, of course._

_“We’ve heard good things.”, the taller one says, fake grin plastered on. That are a lot of teeth missing – Gabriel can remember something, faintly._ Tell him. _Huh. Might be that guy -?_

_“There’s cherry pie in the kitchen.”, Gabriel says, emphasizing the ‘cherry’, and if his grin gets a bit nasty, well. He takes a bite out of the cinnamon roll, getting cinnamon and icing all over his lips._

_Discreetly, Tyson jabs his pointy elbow into his side, hissing something at him he can’t make out._

_“Sweet.”, Taller Guy says, grinning widely and just as meanly as Gabriel, “_ Babe _, do you want some, too?”_

_The guy next to him groans and puts his head down, forehead against the table._

_“’Babe’?!”, Tyson half-shrieks, “_ ’Babe’ _?!???!??”_

_Taller Guy takes this as the signal to escape to the kitchen, and as Gabriel hears Tyson starting up again, this time apparently because – Nate Mack something, Gabriel doesn’t stay to listen in, instead escaping to the kitchen, too._

_“I’m EJ.”, Taller Guy – EJ – says, “Sorry for breaking into your dreams.”_

_“Gabe.”, he says, shaking the offered hand, and: “You made me face the mistakes I’ve made two years ago. Let’s call it quits.”_

_And then they share a slice of cherry pie._

_It reminds him of the dream, the ice cream – but the pie is still slightly warm, not too long out of the oven as it is, and – and unlike the dream, he has nothing to wake up to: Tyson’s here, with him, and he can kiss Tyson, as soon as he comes into the kitchen. They’re together._

_He plucks another cherry from the pie._

**Author's Note:**

> Tags that would've been included in a complete tag list:  
> Gabriel Landeskog/Tyson Barrie  
> Tyson Barrie  
> Bad break-up  
> Breaking up & Making up  
> Romance  
> First Kiss
> 
> *
> 
> And that's it! Thanks for reading!


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